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FUNDAMENTAL  CONCEPTIONS  OF 

PSYCHOANALYSIS 


BY 


A.  A.  BRILL,  Ph.B.,  M.D. 

LECTURER  ON  PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  ABNORMAL  PSYCHGLOGfY, 
NEW   YORK   UNIVERSITY. 


m 


NEW  YORK 

HARCOURT,  BRACE  AND  COMPANY 
1921 


COPYRIGHT,    1 92 1,   BY 
HARCOURT,  BRACE   AND   COMPANY,   INC. 


PRINTED  IN  THE   U.   S.   A. 


INTRODUCTION 

There  are  a  number  of  misconceptions  concerning  psycho- 
analysis, some  of  which  at  least  I  would  like  to  clear  up. 
In  1908,  when  I  first  introduced  psychoanalysis  into  this 
country,  I  addressed  myself  primarily  to  the  medical  pro- 
fession, for  psychoanalysis  was  developed  by  Prof.  Freud 
while  he  studied  the  border-line  cases  of  mental  disturb- 
ances, and  my  interest  was  merely  that  of  a  psychiatrist 
who  vainly  tried  to  help  such  patients  and  finally  found  in 
psychoanalysis  the  most  valuable  instrument  for  the  treat- 
ment and  exploration  of  the  mind.  But  even  then  it  was 
realized  that  the  subjects  treated  by  psychoanalysis  went 
far  beyond  pure  medical  spheres,  for  when  a  human  mind 
was  entered  for  the  purpose  of  studying  the  origin  of  an 
abnormal  manifestation,  all  his  normal  mental  and  emo- 
tional expressions  had  to  be  considered.  In  the  course  of 
many  years  Prof.  Freud  thus  solved  the  mysteries  of 
dreams,  wit,  mythology,  fairy  tales,  and  threw  much  light 
on  the  history  of  civilization  and  on  the  development  of 
religion  and  philosophy, — subjects  and  phenomena  which, 
strictly  speaking,  do  not  belong  to  abnormal  states.  It  was 
therefore  quite  natural  to  expect  that  persons  interested 
in  the  above  mentioned  subjects  would  be  attracted  also 
to  psychoanalysis,  and  a  review  of  the  very  extensive 
psychoanalytic  literature  shows  that  it  not  only  drew  to 
itself  the  attention  of  the  medical  profession  but  also 
that  of  the  psychologist,  educator,  and  serious  minded  lay- 


iv  INTRODUCTION 

man,  and  notwithstanding  some  uninformed  individuals  to 
the  contrary,  much  good  has  already  been  accomplished. 
Last  but  not  least  it  has  also  attracted  many  charlatans 
and  quacks  who  find  in  it  a  medium  for  the  exploitation 
of  the  ignorant  classes  by  promising  to  cure  all  their  ail- 
ments by  psychoanalysis.  This,  as  everyone  knows,  is 
nothing  new  in  medicine ;  there  is  no  disease  which  is  not 
cured  by  quacks.  One  could  therefore  easily  remain  silent 
and  think  that  any  person  who  is  foolish  enough  to  entrust 
his  mind  to  quacks  deserves  no  consideration,  but  as  I  feel 
somewhat  responsible  for  psychoanalysis  in  this  country,  I 
merely  wish  to  say  that,  whereas  psychoanalysis  is  as 
wonderful  a  discovery  in  mental  science  as,  let  us  say,  the 
X-ray  in  surgery,  it  can  be  utilized  only  by  persons  who 
have  been  trained  in  anatomy  and  pathology.  As  a  thera- 
peutic agent  psychoanalysis  at  best  has  a  very  limited 
field,  it  can  only  be  used  in  the  treatment  of  special  cases. 
It  cannot  cure  cancer,  it  cannot  make  an  adjustable  citizen 
out  of  a  defective  "radical,"  it  cannot  return  an  arrant  young 
husband  to  a  neurotic  elderly  lady,  it  has  no  more  to  do 
with  the  separation  of  mismated  couples  than  the  micro- 
scope with  the  dissolutions  of  tissues ;  in  fine  it  cannot  make 
a  normal  person  out  of  an  idiot,  and  does  not  give  a 
philosophy  of  life  to  a  person  who  has  not  brains  enough 
to  formulate  one  himself.  But  it  has  already  rewritten  all 
the  mental  sciences,  and  in  the  hands  of  trained  psychi- 
atrists it  can  cure  the  most  chronic  psychoneurotic  affec- 
tions. Moreover,  the  knowledge  gained  through  it  is  de- 
veloping a  prophylaxis,  which  will  not  only  diminish  nervous 
and  mental  diseases  but  will  establish  newer  methods  in 
our  system  of  education.  In  brief,  psychoanalysis  aside 
from  its  therapeutic  application,  which  is  not  the  object 
of  this  work,  is  of  interest  to  any  person  who  wishes  to 


INTRODUCTION  v 

understand  human  nature  and  know  himself  in  the  Socratic 
sense. 

The  material  found  in  this  book  is  taken  from  the  lec- 
tures given  at  my  elementary  course  at  the  department  of 
pedagogics  of  the  New  York  University.  This  course  is 
primarily  intended  for  those  who  are  occupying  themselves 
with  problems  of  education  and  psychology.  But  as  it  is 
impossible  to  talk  about  the  normal  individual  without  show- 
ing what  would  happen  to  a  child  if  subjected  to  a  peculiar 
or  special  kind  of  environment,  I  have  given  illustrative 
cases  from  abnormal  spheres  as  well  as  brief,  in  no  way 
technical,  descriptions  of  some  forms  of  mental  derange- 
ments. I  have  also  tried  to  avoid  technical  expressions  as 
much  as  possible,  and  have  not  taken  the  trouble  to  clutter 
this  volume  with  a  lot  of  references,  which  a  book  intended 
for  professional  people  would  necessarily  demand,  but  any- 
one knowing  of  my  activities  realizes  that  all  my  work  is 
built  on  Prof.  Freud's  foundations,  and  are  referred  to  his 
works  for  more  detailed  and  more  technical  information. 

Mr.  Sydney  M.  Frankel,  one  of  my  former  students,  has 
given  me  very  valuable  suggestions,  and  relieved  me  of 
the  task  of  indexing  this  book.     I  am  very  much  indebted 

to  him. 

A.  A.  Brill 
November,  1921. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/fundamentalconceOObril 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.   The  Cathartic  Method      ......  i 

11.   The  Symptom  :  Its  Nature  and  Function  .  25 

III.  The  Psychology  of  Forgetting    ....  47 

IV.  PSYCHOPATHOLOGY  OF  EvERY-DaY  LiFE        .        .  76 

V.   Wit:  Its  Technique  and  Tendencies      .     .  113 

VI.   The  Dream  :  Its  Function  and  Motive  .     .  139 

VII.   The   Dream  :    Its    Function    and    Motive 

(continued) 158 

VIII.   Types  of  Dreams 184 

IX.    Types  of  Dreams  (continued) 221 

X.   Common  Forms  of  Insanity 253 

XL   The  Only  Child 279 

XII.    Fairy  Tales  and  Artistic  Productions  .     .  296 

XIII.    Selection  of  Vocations 313 

Index 337 


FUNDAMENTAL  CONCEPTIONS 
OF  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

CHAPTER  I 
THE  CATHARTIC  METHOD 

".  .  .  It  is  by  utterance  that  we  live.  .  .  ." 

Psychoanalysis  is  a  term  that  was  fully  developed  by 
Professor  Sigmund  Freud  and  his  pupils,  and,  etymologically, 
means  mental  analysis.  We  hear  about  all  kinds  of  psycho- 
analysis, but  the  psychoanalysis  that  we  are  going  to  study  is 
a  mental  analysis  of  a  special  kind  that  works  with  special 
instruments;  it  means  the  analysis  of  normal  and  abnormal 
activities  by  a  certain  definite  method, — through  the  analysis 
of  dreams,  psychopathological  actions,  hallucinations,  delu- 
sions, and  psychic  attacks  of  all  kinds  which  we  find  in  the 
abnormal  spheres.  It  was  originally  developed  by  working 
with  the  so-called  border-line  cases  of  mental  diseases ;  that  is 
to  say.  Professor  Freud  treated  cases  of  so-called  nervous- 
ness which  the  average  physician  puts  under  such  headings  as 
neurasthenia,  hysteria,  obsessions,  and  phobias.  In  order  that 
we  may  understand  fully  how  the  subject  of  psychoanalysis 
was  evolved,  it  seems  to  me  desirable  to  say  a  few  words 
about  the  early  history  of  mental  diseases. 

The  first  scientific  description  of  insanity  dates  back  to 
460  B.  C. ;  at  that  time  Hippocrates  considered  mental 
disturbances  as  abnormalities  due  to  some  abnormal  con- 
dition in  the  brain.    Following  him  there  was  a  long  period 


2  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

of  intermission,  but  one  may  find  clinical  descriptions  by 
such  men  as  Aretseus  in  60  A,  D.,  by  Galen  in  160  A.  D,, 

and  by  many  others.  During  the  middle  ages 
Survey  the  subject  was  not  only  neglected,  but  a  great 
Nervous  retrogression  followed.  Insane  people  were 
Mental  treated   most   cruelly,    and   like   criminals   were 

chained  and  put  to  death  for  being  obsessed.  But 
with  the  advance  of  civilization,  the  insane  began  to  receive 
more  and  more  attention,  and  in  1792  Professor  Philippe 
Pinel  of  Paris  brought  about  the  abolition  of  chaining.  He 
was  the  first  one  to  recognize  that  the  insane  person  was  a 
sick  person  and  not  a  demon  or  criminal,  and  since  his  time 
there  has  been  a  gradual  tendency  toward  both  ameliorating 
the  condition  of  the  insane  and  understanding  the  nature  of 
insanity  generally. 

Modern  or  present-day  psychiatry  dates  back  about 
twenty-five  years  or  perhaps  even  less.  But  we  may  say  that 
long  before  then  individual  efforts  had  been  made  to  study 
the  subject  intelligently  and  scientifically,  and  we  find  ac- 
cordingly a  great  many  scientific  contributions  to  catatonia 
and  other  diseases.  But  yet  most  of  the  text-books  then 
current  talked  about  mania  and  melancholia  as  if  they  were 
diseases  by  themselves.  Nowadays  we  know,  of  course,  that 
melancholia  or  mania  are  not  diseases ;  it  would  be  just  as 
wrong  to  call  coughing  a  disease.  We  all  know  that  coughing 
is  only  a  symptom  of  a  disease;  it  is  not  an  entity.  That 
is  to  say,  one  may  cough  because  he  has  tuberculosis,  or 
perhaps  an  ordinary  so-called  cold.  And  so,  too,  with  mania. 
Among  the  insane  there  is  no  form  of  insanity  that  may  not 
show  a  period  of  that  so-called  mania.  It  is  just  a  symptom. 
And  so,  as  you  see,  symptoms  were  taken  for  diseases  and 
there  were  a  great  many  misunderstandings.  I  have  seen  on 
record  at  hospitals  for  the  insane  where  a  patient  has  been 
diagnosed,  say  in  1880,  as  a  case  of  mania,  two  years  later 


THE  CATHARTIC  METHOD  3 

as  a  case  of  melancholia,  three  years  later,  again  as  a  case  of 
mania,  and  five  years  later  the  patient  died  of  softening  of 
the  brain.  This  occurred  simply  because  the  doctors  did  not 
know  any  better,  and  this  is  still  true  of  the  ordinary  prac- 
titioners, particularly  of  those  doctors  who  have  received 
their  education  under  the  old  regime. 

It  was  Professor  Kraepelin,  at  that  time  of  Heidelberg, 
who  evolved  modern  mental  science.  He  was  a  pupil  of  the 
great  psychologist  Wundt,  and  he  discovered  that  the  insane 
followed  definite  characteristics  not  only  in  the  manifesta- 
tions of  their  abnormal  perceptions  but  also  in  the  whole 
course  of  their  disease.  Kraepelin  did  for  mental  diseases 
what  Virchow  did  for  pathology.  The  latter  held  that  we 
must  know  how  the  organs  look  in  order  to  diagnose  a 
disease.  He  examined  diseased  lungs,  for  instance,  and 
found  they  showed  certain  characteristic  features.  But  of 
course  it  was  not  until  the  microscope  was  used  that  real 
entities  were  established,  for  though  a  diseased  lung  may 
appear  tubercular  to  the  naked  eye,  it  may  not  be  that  at  all 
when  studied  and  compared  under  the  microscope.  In 
mental  diseases,  the  microscope  is  psychoanalysis.  For 
years  no  effort  was  made  to  find  out  what  the  patient  said, 
or,  if  he  said  anything  at  all,  what  it  meant.  It  was  suffi- 
cient when  he  was  taken  to  the  hospital,  to  write  in  our  notes 
that  he  was  dull,  stupid,  and  demented.  What  all  that  really 
meant  made  little  difference.  When  I  came  to  the  State 
Hospital,  I  examined  a  patient's  record  of  twenty  years. 
I  would  read, — 1882,  patient  dull,  stupid,  and  demented; 
then  a  few  years  later,  patient  demented,  dull,  and  stupid, 
and  so  on  until  they  almost  exhausted  all  possible  permu- 
tations and  combinations.  Then  "the  patient  suddenly 
died." 

With  Kraepelin's  work,  however,  which  was  introduced 
here  mainly  through  the  efforts  of  Adolf  Meyer,  there  was 


4  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

a  marked  improvement.  Psychological  entries  were  regu- 
larly made,  every  history  was  comprehensively  noted,  and 
particular  attention  was  paid  to  the  general  behavior  of  the 
patient.  We  noted,  for  instance,  what  the  patient  said  and 
did,  whether  he  showed  any  hallucinatory  and  delusional 
trends,  such  as  imagining  that  he  is  an  emperor  of  Japan 
and  that  he  was  robbed  of  his  throne,  or  whether  he  was 
just  indifferent  to  his  environments.  His  intelligence,  mem- 
ory and  orientation  were  thoroughly  tested,  and  last  but  not 
least  he  received  a  thorough  physical  and  neurological  exam- 
ination. Only  after  such  an  examination  did  one  venture 
the  diagnosis.  However,  when  one  reads  a  number  of 
histories  of  the  same  disease  entity,  say,  dementia  praecox, 
one  will  readily  observe  that  there  are  no  two  cases  exactly 
alike.  And  Kraepelin  and  his  school  never  asked  why  it 
was  that  patient  A  had  hallucinations  of  hearing  a  woman 
calling  him  endearing  names,  and  why  patient  B  heard  a 
little  child  crying  "mother,"  and  why  patient  C  heard  a  man 
speaking  to  her.  No  effort  was  made  to  find  out  why  this 
was  so,  until  Professor  Freud  published  his  original  studies 
of  the  so-called  border-line  cases  of  mental  diseases. 

When  we  began  to  examine  the  nature  of  hallucinations 
and  delusions,  we  found  for  example  that  there  is  a  definite 
reason  why  such  and  such  a  woman  sat  in  a  corner  of  the 
room  at  the  hospital  and  fondled  a  doll  made  of  rags  and 
newspapers,  talking  to  it  as  though  it  were  her  baby.  When 
we  investigate  this  woman's  life,  we  find  that  she  had  an  only 
child  and  lost  it,  and  thus  became  insane.  When  a  woman 
talks  to  herself,  as  it  were,  we  find  upon  examination  that 
she  misses  that  person  to  whom  she  talks.  I  have  in  mind 
at  present  a  woman  who  continually  converses  with  her 
imaginary  bridegroom.  Upon  investigation  it  is  found  that 
on  her  wedding  day,  when  all  the  guests  and  relatives  were 
assembled,  he  took  short  leave  and  did  not  come.     Every- 


THE  CATHARTIC  METHOD  5 

body,  of  course,  went  home  and  bitterly  inveighed  against 
him ;  she  alone  tried  to  defend  him.  She  was  stupefied  and 
could  not  imagine  that  he  would  not  come;  she  begged  the 
people  to  wait,  and  they  continued  to  wait  for  hours,  but 
the  man  never  appeared.  Then  suddenly  she  ran  to  the  door 
and  exclaimed  that  she  heard  him  talking  to  her,  and  since 
then  she  has  been  at  the  hospital  for  the  insane. 

Before  Freud  developed  psychoanalysis,  it  was  commonly 
held  that  if  a  person  is  nervous,  there  must  be  something 
wrong  with  his  physical  make-up,  though  this  could  not  be 
substantiated  by  examination.  Such  patients  have  always 
formed  a  very  large  class  of  cases,  complaining  of  all  sorts 
of  aches  and  pains,  peculiar  feelings,  morbid  fears  and  ob- 
sessive thoughts,  for  which  there  was  no  physical  basis.  Dr. 
Beard,  an  American  physician,  concluded  that  as  nothing 
wrong  could  be  ascertained  in  the  physical  examination  of 
such  cases,  there  was  necessarily  something  wrong  with  their 
nerves,  and  he  therefore  designated  this  whole  class  of  cases 
as  neurasthenia,  which  means  a  weakness  of  nerves.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  these  cases  really  show  no  more  "weakness  of 
nerves"  than  people  who  have  no  such  complaints  to  offer. 
But  Dr.  Beard  thought  that  the  nerve  fibers  must  be  weak, 
for  apparently  there  was  no  heart  trouble,  nor  lung  trouble, 
nor  anything  else  that  was  organically  wrong,  to  account  for 
the  patients'  complaints.  Various  remedies  were  used  in 
neurasthenia  but  the  treatment  was  purely  symptomatic. 
Thus  if  the  patients  were  excited  the  medicine  quieted  them, 
if  dull  or  depressed  they  were  stimulated.  But  whatever 
was  the  remedy,  they  did  not  recover ;  they  kept  on  taking 
these  drugs  and  continually  returning  to  the  doctor,  much 
to  the  disgust  of  both  physician  and  patient.  I  may  say  that 
fully  eighty  percent  of  patients  that  consult  doctors  suffer 
from  such  complaints,  as  has  been  shown  by  the  experience 
of  numbers  of  consultants.     They  represent  the  largest  class 


6  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

of  patients  that  we  find  in  clinics,  dispensaries,  and  private 
practice.  Of  course,  they  may  be  helped  somewhat,  but 
that  only  temporarily.  Years  ago,  when  I  worked  in  five 
different  clinics  and  dispensaries  in  New  York,  I  would 
come  in  touch  with  patients  who  had  made  the  acquaintance 
of  all  of  them.  I  would  treat  a  woman  in  the  Vanderbilt 
Clinic  and  then  meet  her  in  the  Bellevue  dispensary;  she 
looked  quite  abashed  and  sorry,  and  declared  apologetically 
that  the  medicine  she  received  from  me  in  the  first  clinic  no 
longer  did  her  any  good.  And  so  these  patients  kept  on 
moving  from  one  hospital  to  another,  and  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  they  still  do  to  this  day. 

About  1880  Professor  Heinrich  Erb  of  the  University  of 
Heidelberg  discovered  the  therapeutic  value  of  electricity. 
It  soon  became  the  rage ;  it  was  used  in  the  diagnosis  as  well 
as  in  the  treatment.  Every  nervous  person  was  sooner  or 
later  initiated  into  the  mystery  of  electrical  shocks ;  when 
the  ordinary  ones  proved  ineffective,  new  forms  of  electrical 
sparks  were  invented.  But  at  best  such  treatment  only 
served  as  a  form  of  suggestion.  In  a  few  weeks  the  patient 
would  come  back  with  some  new  ailment.  Electricity  may 
do  some  temporary  good,  but  it  never  cures.  A  little 
electricity,  a  dose  of  medicine,  or  a  cold  bath  or  massage  may 
help  a  little,  but  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  I  have  never 
seen  a  chronic  case  that  was  cured  by  such  means.  Like  the 
other  practitioners  of  his  time.  Professor  Freud  resorted  to 
all  the  remedies  at  his  disposal  but  the  results  were  very  dis- 
couraging. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  Freud  read  about  Professor  Charcot 
of  Paris,  who  was  experimenting  with  hypnotism.  Charcot 
found  that  he  could  hypnotize  a  hysterical  person  and  sug- 
gest to  her  the  symptom  of  another  person  and  the  patient 
would  have  this  symptom.  In  other  words,  he  maintained 
that  hysterical  symptoms  can  be  suggested  through  hypno- 


THE  CATHARTIC  METHOD  7 

tism,  and  if  they  can  be  suggested,  they  can  also  be  re- 
moved by  hypnotism.  Let  me  say,  in  passing,  that  hypno- 
tism is  nothing  quite  as  strange  and  mysterious  as  you  gen- 
erally imagine.  Do  not  think  that  a  person  can  be  hypno- 
tized volens  nolens  in  the  manner  shown  on  the  vaudeville 
stage.  No  one  can  be  hypnotized  against  his  will.  But 
there  is  no  doubt  that  if  people  are  willing,  they  can  usually 
be  hypnotized.  Charcot's  experiments  soon  became  widely 
known  in  the  scientific  world.  As  soon  as  Freud  heard 
about  these  new  studies,  he  left  his  practice,  went  to  Paris, 
and  became  one  of  Charcot's  favorite  pupils.  He  worked 
with  him  for  about  two  years. 

When  Freud  came  back  to  Vienna,  he  at  once  decided  to 
utilize  his  knowledge  on  cases  of  neurasthenia.  He  had  a 
friend  older  than  himself.  Dr.  Breuer,  a  man  of  ^.j^^ 
great  learning,  and  recognized  in  Europe  for  his  '1^^ 
attainments  in  medical  and  scientific  subjects,  who  cnre" 
took  considerable  interest  in  his  career.  Naturally  he  was 
very  eager  to  know  all  about  Charcot's  work  and  after 
Freud  explained  to  him  what  the  noted  neurologist  was 
doing  in  hysteria,  Breuer  began  to  describe  what  he  con- 
sidered an  unusually  interesting  case.  He  told  his  younger 
friend  about  a  woman  whom  he  thought  to  be  intelligent 
and  refined  and  who  was  suffering  from  a  severe  case  of 
hysteria.  She  had  been  treated  by  some  of  the  most  prom- 
inent neurologists  in  Europe  and  finally  came  back  to 
Breuer,  her  family  physician.  One  day  she  said  to  him: 
"Dr.  Breuer,  if  you  would  only  let  me  talk  to  you  and  if  I 
could  tell  you  how  my  difficulties  started,  I  think  we  could 
do  something."  Dr.  Breuer  was  sympathetic  and  told  her 
to  go  right  ahead.  She  began  to  tell  him  of  a  paralysis  she 
had,  and  presently  she  went  into  an  intimate  account  of  her 
life;  she  talked  on  and  on  with  much  feeling,  and  when  he 
reminded  her,  in  a  f rai]k  and  friendly  way,  that  he  could  give 


8  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

her  no  more  time,  she  asked  him  for  an  appointment  to  come 
again.  Every  time  she  came  and  talked  for  an  hour  she  felt 
appreciably  better ;  she  called  it  the  "talking  cure."  She  in- 
sisted upon  calling  on  him  just  to  talk.  She  would  tell  him 
when  a  certain  symptom  came,  how  she  suffered,  about  her 
intimate  affairs,  and  about  such  and  such  a  dream.  She 
spoke  about  things  that  a  doctor  would  not  generally  think 
of  listening  to.  It  meant  quite  a  tax  on  his  time,  but  he 
was  anxious  to  help  her.  He  became  attached  to  her  and 
sympathized  with  her  emotional  difficulties ;  and  gradually 
she  was  losing  one  symptom  after  another.  It  seemed 
strange  to  Breuer ;  he  had  given  this  woman  all  sorts  of 
medicines,  another  doctor  had  given  her  hot  and  cold  baths, 
and  another  electricity;  and  now  she  came  merely  to  tell 
him  stories  and  was  getting  well. 

To  Freud  this  story  was  full  of  significance;  it  opened  up 
problems  to  him  that  he  had  been  pondering  for  years.  He 
asked  himself  why  this  woman  should  be  getting  well  by 
merely  talking.  As  he  went  deeper  and  deeper  into  the 
problem,  he  became  more  and  more  convinced  of  one  funda- 
mental principle.  He  began  to  see  more  and  more  clearly 
that  the  whole  idea  was,  that  if  the  patient  could  go  back 
to  the  origin  of  the  symptom,  then  the  symptom  would  dis- 
appear. The  great  difficulty,  however,  was  that  it  took  so 
much  time.  When  a  person  comes  to  you  and  tells  you 
about  his  or  her  life  and  you  have  to  be  a  sympathetic  listen- 
er and  live  through  that  life,  as  it  were,  you  cannot  go 
through  with  it  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye;  life  is  long,  and 
it  takes  time  to  track  its  undercurrents,  and  a  person's 
thoughts  do  not  run  in  seconds ;  it  is  not  a  matter  of  feeling 
a  pulse.  Freud  suggested  that  hypnotism  be  used  in  con- 
junction with  this  "talking  cure,"  for  hypnotism  is  supposed 
to  broaden  consciousness ;  it  opens  up  the  whole  mind ;  no 
resistances  or  inhibitions  are  offered;  things  come  into  the 


THE  CATHARTIC  METHOD  9 

mind  and  take  root.  A  patient  in  the  waking  state  will  not 
be  able  to  answer  questions,  unless  you  give  him  a  long  time 
to  think  and  recall.  Freud  thought  accordingly  that  it  would 
be  a  splendid  idea  to  hypnotize  her  and  ask  her  how  and 
when  she  got  her  symptom ;  this  would  save  so  much  time. 
And  so  he  and  Breuer  took  the  patient's  history  first,  then 
hypnotized  her  and  asked  her  about  her  painful  condition. 
The  patient  would  recall  and  tell  everything,  and  gradually 
the  symptom  disappeared. 

Freud  and  Breuer  worked  together  for  some  time  and  got 
wonderful  results;  they  were  so  impressed  with  this  new 
procedure  that  they  called  it  the  "Cathartic  Method,"  which 
means  the  purging  of  the  mind,  a^ort  of  unburdening  of  the 
mind.  In  every-day  life,  we  all  know  the  therapeutic  value 
of  expression;  when  a  person  tells  you  his  troubles  he  be- 
gins to  feel  better ;  we  say  a  weight  has  been  removed  from 
his  heart.  They  took  cases  that  had  been  resisting  treatment 
for  years  and  cured  them.  They  finally  reported  some  of 
them  and  formulated  various  theories.  In  the  first  place, 
they  found  that  all  hysterics  suffer  from  the  past.  Every 
hysterical  symptom  represents  some  mental  or  emotional 
disturbance  that  has  taken  place  in  the  person's  life  in  the 
past ;  there  were  occurrences  of  a  disagreeable  and  painful 
nature  which  every  individual  likes  to  forget.  The  idea  was 
that  if  a  patient  can  recall  an  unpleasant  situation  and  live  it 
over,  so  to  say,  he  loses  the  symptom ;  that  words  are  almost 
equivalent  to  the  action,  and  that  in  going  over  some  painful 
experience  in  the  past,  there  is  what  is  called  an  ahrcaction, 
German,  "Abrcagierung,"  in  which  the  painful  emotions  as- 
sociated with  the  experience  are  liberated  and  thus  cease  to 
create  physical  disturbances.  When  the  patient  had  a  pain 
in  the  face  it  was  treated  as  neuralgia ;  of  course,  it  may 
have  been  that  or  not.  If  it  is  neuralgia  it  will  usually  yield 
to  treatment,  if  not  it  is  a  psychic  pain,  a  functional  pain.    It 


10  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

represents,  in  concrete  form,  the  expression:  "I  felt  as 
though  she  slapped  me  in  the  face."  When  the  painful 
situation  is  brought  back  to  the  patient  and  explained  to 
him,  the  symptom  disappears. 

Let  me  make  all  this  a  little  clearer  by  an  example,  A 
woman  has  a  pain  in  her  arm;  she  consults  the  doctor,  who 
examines  her  and  asks  her  whether  she  was  out  yesterday. 

She  says  she  was,  and  that  the  weather  was  bad  and  she 
caught  cold.  He  prescribes  a  medicine,  but  the  pain  con- 
tinues. She  returns  to  the  doctor,  he  tries  some  other 
remedy,  but  the  pain  grows  worse.  The  patient  is  dis- 
couraged and  consults  another  physician;  she  now  merely 
tells  him  she  has  rheumatism  in  her  arm;  she  gives  him  the 
symptoms;  he  takes  it  for  granted  that  she  has  rheumatism 
and  treats  her  accordingly.  She  goes  from  doctor  to  doctor 
until  some  diagnostician  pronounces  it  hysterical  and  not 
rheumatism.  She  consults  a  neurologist  and  we  find  this 
story :  She  is  a  young  woman  who  had  made  the  acquaintance 
of  a  college  student.  As  time  went  on,  they  became  more  and 
more  intimate  and  it  was  rumored  that  they  were  to  be  mar- 
ried; in  fact  she  thought  so  too.  Upon  graduating,  he  left 
the  city  and  kept  up  a  long  correspondence  with  her.  He 
came  and  spent  his  vacations  with  her ;  but  he  did  not  pro- 
pose. The  general  impression  was  that,  as  he  was  a  young 
man,  he  wished  to  make  his  way  in  the  world  before  he  mar- 
ried. Thus  for  years  he  came,  spent  his  vacations  with 
her,  and  left  without  proposing.  The  last  year  he  wrote  her 
with  manifest  enthusiasm  that  at  last  he  had  reached  the  goal 
of  his  ambition:  he  had  received  an  appointment  with  such 
and  such  a  salary.  All  the  relatives  heard  about  the  letter 
and  were  now  quite  sure  he  would  marry  her.  He  came  for 
his  vacation,  as  usual,  spent  some  time  with  her  and  took  her 
out  for  a  long  walk  the  night  before  he  left.  But  he  did 
not  propose.     Everybody  was  disappointed ;  the  mother  was 


THE  CATHARTIC  METHOD  li 

disgusted;  her  brother  threatened  to  punch  him  in  the  face 
when  he  came  again ;  and  the  poor  girl  was  terribly  grieved. 
She  was  told  to  drop  him  and  think  no  more  of  him ;  she  was 
willing  to  do  so  but  claimed  that  it  was  much  easier  said  than 
done.  She  argued  that  he  must  love  her  or  else  he  would 
not  write  and  spend  his  vacations  with  her ;  she  felt  that  she 
was  his  only  confidante.  She  did  not  realize  that  there  are 
men  who  are  so  inhibited  in  their  love  life  that  they  cannot 
propose.  She  v^^as  experiencing  a  mental  conflict.  She 
wanted  to  drop  him;  but  there  was  no  mistake  about  his 
loving  her.  He  was  a  serious,  quiet,  well-behaved  man  who 
came  from  a  very  fine  family  and  whom  no  one  could  accuse 
of  being  a  trifler.  "He  certainly  is  not  an  adventurer,  be- 
cause he  does  not  act  like  one,"  she  would  think  to  herself ; 
"but  why,  then,  does  he  not  propose?"  I  w^ould  like  you  to 
notice  the  human,  emotional  element  that  enters  into  all 
these  cases.  Gradually,  however,  she  made  up  her  mind 
that  he  did  not  love  her  and  that  she  would  have  nothing 
more  to  do  with  him.  In  time  she  was  even  ready  to  write 
to  him  not  to  correspond  with  her,  but  she  could  not  gather 
sufficient  strength  to  do  so.  Gradually  there  came  on  that 
pain  in  her  arm. 

When  we  go  beyond  the  superficial  aspects  of  this  case, 
we  find  that  it  goes  back  to  a  fundamental  condition  in  the 
past.  We  discover  that  the  patient  is  suffering  from  the 
past,  that  the  pain  in  her  arm  is  only  a  monument  of  the 
past ;  it  is  a  memento,  one  might  say,  of  her  mental  conflict. 
In  other  words,  when  she  was  emotionally  arguing  with  her- 
self whether  he  loved  her  or  not  and  when  she  had  to  re- 
press all  talk  about  him,  and  make  herself  believe  that  she 
did  not  love  him,  her  feelings,  her  emotions  became  converted 
into  that  of  pain.  The  arm  was  the  arm  that  he  pressed  on 
the  night  before  he  left.  She  would  say  to  herself  :  "But  what 
about  that  feeling?    He  pressed  my  arm";  for  then  she  had 


12  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

hoped  that  he  would  say  the  expected  words.  Analysis  reveals 
that  it  is  that  feeling  that  she  wished  to  retain  in  memory  that 
became  a  pain ;  it  was  a  symbolic  form  of  expression,  for 
she  could  not  talk  about  it  in  any  other  way.  Without  hav- 
ing to  speak  about  the  young  man  she  could  now  uncon- 
sciously retain  this  episode  through  the  pain  in  the  arm. 
There  was  in  a  sense,  a  morbid  gain.  She  could  now  talk 
and  complain  about  her  pain  and  thus  have  some  form  of 
expression,  though  the  fundamental  and  deeper  phase  of 
her  condition  was  submerged  and  she  knew  nothing  about 
it.  We  see  here  a  conversion  of  past  emotion  into  some- 
thing physical.^  When  the  patient  realized  this  deeper  as- 
pect of  her  condition  and  when  the  painful  past  experience 
was  brought  to  her  consciousness  she  was  cured.  It  was 
after  careful  study  and  observation  of  such  cases  that  the 
idea  was  postulated,  then,  first,  that  one  can  convert  psychic 
energy  into  physical  manifestations,  and  secondly  that  a  cure 
is  effected  by  bringing  the  submerged  painful  experience  to 
consciousness,  thus  releasing  the  strangulated  emotions. 
This  new  viewpoint  meant  an  enormous  step  forward. 

We  may  see  from  the  above  case  that  what  Breuer  and 

Freud  brought  to  the  surface  by  the  Cathartic  Method  were 

those  things  that  the  patient  found  disagreeable 

Con-  and  painful,  things  that  the  patient  could  not  talk 

SClOUS,  1  /-ni    •  1     •  r 

Pore-  about,     this  young  woman  could  not  complam  of 

scioua  the  fact  that  the  young  man  did  not  propose  to 

uncon-  her  for  so  many  years;  and  of  course,  if  it  is 

essentially  a  sexual  situation,  no  sensitive  person 
can    speak    about    it    openly,    particularly    a    woman.      In 

^This  conversion  of  mental  into  physical  elements  takes  place  in 
a  certain  definite  way.  This  particular  patient  had  the  reminiscence 
of  the  arm,  so  it  was  in  the  arm ;  sometimes  it  is  in  the  nose,  hair 
or  any  other  organ  or  bodily  function.  It  is  hard  to  realize  how 
many  different  complaints  one  hears  from  patients  of  this  type. 


THE  CATHARTIC  METHOD  13 

other  words,  they  formulated  the  theory  that  the  patient 
suffers  from  what  we  call  strangulated  emotions,  certain 
feelings  and  ideas  which  we  would  like  to  give  vent  to,  but 
cannot.  We  say  they  are  finally  pushed  into  the  uncon- 
scious, and  we  postulate  such  a  thing  as  unconscious,  that  is, 
something  of  which  the  person  is  absolutely  unaware  and 
which  he  cannot,  through  any  effort  of  his  own,  bring  to 
consciousness.  In  the  Zurich  school,  which  I  shall  have  oc- 
casion to  speak  about  later,  we  thought  of  the  emotions  thus 
associated  with  a  painful  experience  as  forming  a  complex. 
We  defined  it  as  an  idea  or  group  of  ideas  accentuated  and 
colored  over  by  profound  emotional  feelings  which  was 
gradually  relegated  to  the  unconscious  for  the  very  reason 
that  it  was  of  a  distinctly  painful  nature  and  so  could  not 
be  kept  in  consciousness.  We  unconsciously  run  away  from 
distressing  thoughts :  we  say  we  wish  to  forget  them.  These 
strangulated  ideas  and  emotions  remain  in  the  unconscious  in 
a  dormant  state,  and  any  association  may  bring  them  to  the 
surface. 

A  woman,  for  instance,  gets  up  one  morning,  feeling  per- 
fectly well ;  she  sits  down  to  her  desk  to  write  a  note  to  her 
friend.  She  writes  the  date  and  stops ;  a  feeling  of  sadness 
gradually  grows  upon  her,  and  she  decides  not  to  write.  All 
day  she  feels  depressed ;  it  so  happens  that  she  comes  to  see 
me  and  tells  me  about  it.  Upon  talking  to  her,  I  find 
that  the  moment  she  took  her  pen  and  wrote  the  date  the 
latter  struck  a  complex  in  her  mind  which  evoked  a  certain 
date  that  went  back  a  great  many  years  to  a  day  when  some- 
thing extremely  disagreeable  happened  to  her.  When  she 
became  depressed,  she  knew  nothing  about  it.  She  did  not 
consciously  recall  the  original  painful  experience.  She 
merely  experienced  the  emotion  that  went  with  the  episode. 
In  this  pushing  out  of  what  is  painful  from  the  field  of 
consciousness,  we  have  an  unconscious  protective  mechanism. 


14  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

We  have  to  forget,  so  to  say,  a  painful  experience ;  if  every- 
thing disquieting  and  troublesome  were  to  remain  in  con- 
sciousness, life  would  be  unbearable.  But  a  word,  an  odor, 
a  sound,  a  color,  may  plunge  you  right  back  into  that  state 
of  mind  of,  let  us  say,  ten  years  ago ;  you  have  completely 
forgotten  the  whole  situation,  but  the  emotion,  like  an  old 
unwelcome  visitor,  comes  up  and  depresses  you.  Some- 
times the  recurring  emotions  are  pleasant  ones,  but  usually 
they  are  unpleasant. 

In  studying  such  cases  we  find  that  the  painful  episodes 
are  kept  in  the  unconscious,  because  they  could  not  be  worked 
off  at  the  time  of  their  occurrence.  An  individual  ex- 
periences a  profound  emotional  shock  and  cannot  give  it  ex- 
pression ;  it  remains  in  a  repressed  condition ;  and  the  only 
way  to  liberate  the  pathological  energy  it  has  accumulated 
is  by  bringing  it  to  the  plane  of  conscious  expression.  When 
the  patient  talks  about  it,  he  is  living  it  over  in  a  very  vital 
sense.  I  have  had  a  patient  take  a  little  statuette  which  was 
on  my  desk  and  throw  it  on  the  floor  and  break  it,  simply 
because  he  was  intensely  wrought  up  over  a  certain  experi- 
ence he  recalled.  I  had  a  lady  to-day  in  my  office  who  was 
greatly  surprised  at  first  and  laughed,  when  I  explained  to 
her  the  reason  why  she  could  not  walk.  Presently  she 
cried  out:  "Doctor,  my  legs  are  tingling."  I  told  her  she 
could  walk  home,  and  she  did.  There  was  an  abreaction; 
we  reached  the  crux  of  the  emotional  experience;  the  whole 
situation  was  brought  to  her  consciousness. 

I  would  like  you  to  notice  that  I  am  using  the  term  "un- 
conscious" and  not  "subconscious"  which  is  used  rather 
loosely  by  many  people  to  denote  so  many  different  things. 
As  we  have  already  said,  the  unconscious,  according  to 
Freud,  includes  all  those  psychic  manifestations  of  which  the 
person  is  not  aware.  It  is  made  up  of  repressed  material, 
that  is,  of  the  sum  total  of  those  psychic  processes  which 


THE  CATHARTIC  METHOD  15 

have  been  crowded  out  of  consciousness  from  the  very  be- 
ginning of  childhood;  they  are  the  primitive  impulses  that 
have  been  inhibited  and  sublimated  in  the  development  of 
the  child.  The  child  is  originally  a  primitive  being ;  it  is  like 
a  little  animal,  and  as  it  gradually  gives  up  the  gross  animal 
instincts,  it  represses  them ;  we  say  they  are  pushed  into  the 
unconscious.  We  try  to  make  a  child  do  what  it  would  not 
do,  if  left  by  itself.  There  are  primitive  impulses  in  every 
child  which  have  to  be  curbed  from  the  very  beginning  and 
which  form  points  of  crystallization  for  future  repressions. 
An  occurrence  in  one's  life,  at  the  age  of  fifty,  for  instance, 
may  be  traced  back  to  some  childhood  repression;  there  is 
always  some  subtle  and  intimate  connection  in  our  present 
emotional  experience  with  something  that  occurred  in  the 
past.  Absorbed  in  the  immediate  synthetic  significance  of  a 
present  experience  we  cannot  stop  to  realize  the  important 
part  the  past  has  had  in  molding  it;  in  a  very  real  sense  it 
may  be  said  that  we  are  always  elaborating  upon  old  psychic 
material.  But  what  is  more,  these  past  elements  lie  in  the  un- 
conscious and  are  prevented  from  coming  to  the  surface  by 
the  protective  mechanism  to  which  I  have  already  drawn 
your  attention. 

Then,  too,  there  are  the  repressions  which  take  place  in 
adult  life;  and  because  the  late  experiences  of  which  they 
consist  have  not  been  subjected  to  the  same  amount  of  re- 
pression as  the  earlier  and  more  primitive  ones,  we  say  they 
remain  in  what  is  designated  as  the  foreconscious.  We 
have,  then,  an  unconscious,  a  foreconscious,  and  a  conscious 
plane,  as  it  were.  As  we  go  along,  I  shall  try  to  show  you 
how  different  psychic  manifestations,  such  as  neurotic 
symptoms,  or  dreams,  fall  into  one  or  another  of  these  cate- 
gories. We  shall  see  that  the  psychoneurotic  symptom  is 
the  function  of  two  separate  systems,  or  psychic  streams, 
both  striving  for  expression.     One  subjects  the  activity  of 


i6  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

the  other  to  a  critique,  which  results  in  an  exdusion  from 
consciousness.  Now  the  criticizing  system,  or  the  fore- 
conscious,  is  in  closer  relation  to  the  one  criticized,  or  the 
unconscious ;  it  stands  like  a  screen  between  the  unconscious 
and  consciousness.  Both  the  unconscious  and  the  fore- 
conscious  are  unknown  in  the  psychical  sense,  but  the  uncon- 
scious is  incapable  of  consciousness  without  external  aid, 
while  the  foreconscious  can  reach  consciousness  after  it  ful- 
fills certain  conditions  which  we  shall  take  up  later  on.  We 
maintain  that  eight-ninths  of  all  our  actions  are  guided  by 
our  unconscious  and  that  consciousness  as  such  is  nothing  but 
an  organ  of  perception. 

For  some  time  Freud  and  Breuer  continued  to  treat  cases 
of  hysteria  and  neurasthenia  quite  successfully;  but  they 
The  were  soon  confronted  by  a  serious  difficulty ;  they 

arHo"  found  that  a  great  many  people  who  were  sick 

EUbo-*  ^^^  needed  help  could  not  be  hypnotized.  They 
rated  were  especially  interested  in  a  certain  very  in- 

telligent woman  whom  they  made  every  effort  to  hypnotize, 
but  without  success.  Finally  Freud  took  her  to  Bernheim 
in  France,  who  was  reputed  to  be  able  to  hypnotize  almost 
all  of  his  patients,  but  he,  too,  could  do  nothing  with  her. 
What  was  to  be  done?  Freud  then  thought  of  an  experi- 
ment that  he  saw  in  Bernheim's  clinic.  In  hypnotism,  if  you 
give  the  person  what  is  called  a  post-hypnotic  suggestion, 
that  is,  tell  him  that  at  three  o'clock,  Friday,  January  25th, 
he  is  to  come  to  a  certain  place,  and  take,  let  us  say,  an 
umbrella  there,  precisely  at  that  time  he  will  experience  a 
feeling  of  inner  compulsion,  and  if  no  physical  conditions 
intervene,  he  will  try  to  carry  out  the  suggestion.  When 
the  person  is  in  the  hypnotic  state  and  receives  such  a  sug- 
gestion, he  is  absolutely  unconscious  of  it  later;  it  is  followed 
by  what  we  term  post-hypnotic  amnesia;  he  forgets  com- 


THE  CATHARTIC  METHOD  17 

pletely  the  entire  experience.  I  once  performed  this  same 
experiment  with  a  nurse;  a  doctor  was  present  to  see  how 
it  worked  out.  Exactly  at  the  stated  time  she  came;  she 
was  under  the  impression  that  the  doctor  was  one  of  my 
patients,  and  though  she  knew  very  definitely  that  no  one 
was  allowed  to  come  into  the  office  while  I  was  being  con- 
sulted, she  nevertheless  made  an  effort  to  enter.  The  doctor 
met  her  at  the  door  and  upon  asking  her  what  she  wished,  she 
replied:  "I  must  go  in  and  get  an  umbrella;  it  is  raining." 
When  he  drew  her  attention  to  the  fact  that  it  was  not  rain- 
ing she  felt  quite  embarrassed.  Thus  without  thinking,  she 
carried  out  the  idea  she  had  received  in  the  hypnotic  state. 
In  the  same  way,  also,  an  alcoholic,  for  instance,  will  ex- 
perience a  feeling  of  nausea  and  will  actually  vomit  when- 
ever he  tries  to  drink  alcoholic  beverages  after  he  has  re- 
ceived a  hypnotic  suggestion  to  that  effect.  Of  course,  the 
matter  is  not  quite  as  simple  as  it  may  sound. 

After  such  a  post-hypnotic  suggestion  Bernheim  would 
ask  the  patient  to  try  and  recall  what  happened  while  he  was 
unconscious.  The  latter  would  say  that  he  remembered 
nothing ;  he  was  urged  on,  however,  to  concentrate  and  think 
until  at  first  some  vague  reminiscence  came  to  consciousness, 
and  finally  the  very  suggestion  that  was  given  during  the 
hypnosis.  Now  Freud  saw  no  reason  why  the  same  thing 
could  not  be  done  with  his  patient  who  could  not  be 
hypnotized;  if  it  was  possible  to  recall  a  post-hypnotic  sug- 
gestion, why  should  it  be  impossible  to  recall  the  episode  as- 
sociated with  her  symptom?  He  set  about  questioning  the 
woman;  at  first  she  could  recall  nothing;  he  would  insist 
upon  her  telling  him  what  came  to  her  mind,  as  she  was  con- 
centrating her  attention  upon  the  symptom.  She  talked  about 
many  things  that  had  no  apparent  connection  with  the  par- 
ticular situation;  she  went  on  and  on  and  he  noted  very 
carefully  everything  she  said.     In  this  way.  he  finally  reached 


i8  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

the  origin  of  the  symptom.  He  then  found  not  only  that 
hypnotism  was  not  necessary  but  that  it  was  much  better  to 
treat  a  patient  without  it,  for  people,  as  a  rule,  have  an 
almost  instinctive  dread  of  hypnosis.  That  is  how  he  de- 
veloped what  he  called  the  "continuous  association  method" ; 
it  was  the  most  significant  contribution  to  the  psychoanalytic 
procedure. 

I  would  like  to  draw  your  attention,  in  this  connection,  to 
a  fundamental  difference  Freud  pointed  out  between  hypno- 
tism and  the  psychoanalytic  method.  The  former  works,  as 
in  painting,  by  putting  on  impressions,  per  via  di  porre,  as 
Leonardo  da  Vinci  has  so  aptly  expressed  it;  the  latter 
method  by  removing  all  extraneous  material,  per  via  di 
levare.  As  the  sculptor  chisels  a  piece  of  marble  into  the 
ideal  shape,  so  also  in  psychoanalysis,  we  endeavor  to  bring 
the  individual  into  complete  harmony  and  unity  of  char- 
acter, by  taking  av/ay  all  undesirable  excrescences  in  the 
forms  of  needless  inhibitions  imposed  upon  him  by  his  en- 
vironment. In  hypnotism  we  disregard  the  individual's 
mental  make-up ;  he  is  in  an  unconscious  state  and  we  simply 
impose  upon  him  some  suggestion,  in  a  bold,  authoritative 
fashion.  In  psychoanalysis  we  learn  to  know  the  patient; 
we  delve  into  the  deeper  mainsprings  of  his  character;  we 
gain  his  confidence ;  and  when  we  have  learnt  his  personality 
and  come  into  vital  and  intimate  relations  with  it,  we  then  re- 
move, as  the  sculptor,  all  extraneous  matter.  We  impose 
nothing;  we  merely  eliminate  and  dispense  with  whatever  is 
superfluous,  obstructive,  and  cumbrous. 

Following  this  analogy  I  may  add  that  there  is  also  a 
similarity  in  the  relations  that  sculpture  and  psychoanalysis 
respectively  bear  to  the  material  with  which  each  works. 
Just  as  in  the  former  the  ultimate  result  of  the  artist's  efforts, 
his  consummate  achievement,  will  depend  in  large  measure 
upon  the  nature  of  the  material  that  he  uses,  so  in  the  latter. 


THE  CATHARTIC  METHOD  19 

the  physician's  ultimate  success  in  the  treatment  will  be  de- 
pendent to  no  small  degree,  on  the  character  of  the  patient. 
We  are  told  that  in  creative  work  there  is  always  a  fine 
blending  of  form  and  idea,  of  substance  and  execution.  We 
look  upon  Michelangelo's  Moses  in  a  spirit  of  profound  awe; 
how  sublime  and  terrible  does  this  old  prophet  appear! 
But  have  you  ever  paused  to  consider  for  a  moment  how 
ludicrous  this  powerful  statue  would  be  if  instead  of  that 
fine,  white,  clear  marble,  the  sculptor  had  used,  let  us  say, 
some  stone  with  black  streaks  running  through  it?  And 
likewise  in  psychoanalysis  the  physician  can  attain  the  best 
results  with  the  best  type  of  individual  only ;  by  that  I  mean, 
a  patient  of  the  higher  type  mentally,  morally,  and  in  every 
other  respect.  Psychoanalytic  therapy  can  accomplish 
nothing  with  the  defective;  the  individual  must  be  at  least  of 
the  average  type  to  derive  any  marked  benefits  from  the 
treatment. 

When  we  attempt  to  discover  the  origin  of  the  symptom 
through  the  free  and  continuous  associations  of  the  patient, 
such  as  we  have  noted  above,  we  find  the  way  beset  with 
many  difficulties.  Many  things  have  to  be  found  out  before 
you  can  judge  from  the  productions  obtained  from  the 
patient;  you  get  a  mass  of  material  and  you  may  soon  lose 
your  way  in  it ;  your  have  to  know  what  it  essentially  means. 
H  you  examine  the  actual  productions  that  a  person  gives 
you  when  you  ask  him  to  tell  you  what  comes  to  his  mind, 
you  will  find  a  very  peculiar  state  of  affairs;  you  will  then 
realize  that  there  is  no  such  thing  in  the  world  as  a  clear 
thinker.  A  patient  has  a  jumble  of  thoughts  running 
through  his  mind  and  he  feels  that  he  would  appear  ridicu- 
lous and  stupid  if  he  were  to  describe  it ;  he  is  naturally  em- 
barrassed and  finds  refuge  in  silence.  Moreover,  there  are 
certain  perversities  of  nature  that  come  to  his  mind, — 
very  delicate  subjects  indeed,  that  no  one  likes  to  talk  about. 


20  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Thus  an  enormous  number  of  things  emerge  which  he  thinks 
are  quite  irrelevant,  family  skeletons,  and  little  buried  secrets 
that  the  doctor  need  not  know.  What  is  more,  the  very 
thing  you  are  seeking  is  kept  down  and  held  in  the  uncon- 
scious by  chains,  as  it  were,  because  it  is  disagreeable  and 
painful.  As  we  have  said,  there  is  a  protective  mechanism 
on  the  part  of  the  mind  to  prevent  it  from  coming  to  the 
surface;  you  must  not  know  it,  because  if  you  do,  it  will 
cause  you  pain.  Another  great  difficulty  is  that  the  same 
words  have  very  often  different  meanings  to  different  people; 
no  two  individuals  talk  exactly  the  same  language;  every- 
body has  his  own  way  of  expressing  ideas;  everybody  has 
his  own  mode  of  reaction  to  this  world.  There  are  some 
expressions  in  every  family  that  the  uninitiated  cannot  under- 
stand; there  is  a  sort  of  Freemasonry  in  every  home.  But 
the  greatest  difficulty  is  that  the  language  that  we  find  in  the 
unconscious  is  different  from  that  of  our  every-day  life; 
what  I  mean  is,  that  in  the  unconscious  conceptions  are  ex- 
pressed in  a  different  way  than  in  conscious  life,  as  I  shall 
show  you  more  fully  when  we  discuss  the  subject  of  dreams. 
Now  all  this  had  to  be  fathomed,  analyzed,  elaborated, 
weighed,  and  understood,  before  we  could  get  at  the  heart  of 
the  situation. 

In  thus  probing  the  unconscious,  Freud  became  impressed 
with  certain  fundamental  facts.  For  one  thing,  he  began  to 
see  more  and  more  clearly  that  impressions  are  imperishable, 
especially  those  we  receive  in  early  life.  When  we  probe 
the  mind  we  always  find  that  the  individual  receives  the  most 
vital  impressions  that  stand  out  for  life  and  direct  him,  in 
the  beginning  of  his  existence.  The  child's  mind  when  born 
is,  in  the  words  of  Locke,  a  tabula  rasa,  a  blank  slate;  the 
child  is  endowed  with  certain  elementary  mechanisms  that 
will  help  it  to  sustain  life;  gradually  those  impressions  are 
formed  that  are  so  vitally  necessary  for  the  proper  adjust- 


THE  CATHARTIC  METHOD  21 

ment.  Whether  the  individual  will  be  the  so-called  normal 
or  abnormal  person,  whether  he  will  be  able  to  adjust  him- 
self to  his  environment  or  fall  by  the  wayside,  depends  en- 
tirely upon  the  nature  of  these  early  impressions.  Given  an 
average  amount  of  brains,  every  individual  as  he  grows  up 
has  certain  tracks  laid  out  for  him  by  his  environment;  he 
can  follow  those  tracks  and  those  only;  if  he  attempts  to  get 
off  the  track,  he  finds  himself  in  trouble;  he  finds  himself 
incompatible  with  his  environment,  he  collides  with  his 
environment.  It  is  thus  of  great  importance  to  give 
the  individual  enough  tracks  to  be  able  to  move  freely 
and  at  the  same  time  not  to  come  into  conflict  with  his 
fellow  beings.  From  a  very  broad  experience  with  nervous 
and  mental  diseases,  I  feel  that  if  everybody  would  un- 
derstand this,  all  mothers  and  teachers  particularly,  we 
could  reduce  nervous  and  mental  diseases  as  much  as  we 
have  reduced  diseases  of  small-pox  and  typhoid.  We  are 
not  afflicted  with  these  time-old  diseases  to-day  because  we 
know  what  produces  them  and  have  learnt  to  prevent  them. 
We  can  do  likewise  with  a  knowledge  of  the  psychoanalytic 
principles.  Indeed  the  great  service  that  psychoanalysis  can 
render  to-day  consists  chiefly  of  prophylaxis ;  as  far  as  curing 
patients  is  concerned,  I  feel  rather  pessimistic  at  present. 
We  can  cure  few  in  comparison  with  the  overwhelming 
numbers :  the  treatment  can  be  carried  out  only  by  physicians 
of  experience  with  nervous  and  mental  work;  then,  too,  it 
requires  so  much  time  that  very  many  people  cannot  afford  it. 
I  feel  that  it  will  take  probably  from  twenty  to  thirty  years 
before  we  shall  have  enough  institutions  to  afford  needy 
patients  the  benefits  of  psychoanalytic  therapy. 

There  was  also  another  fundamental  thing  that  very 
forcibly  impressed  Freud,  as  he  continued  treating  and  study- 
ing his  patients.  He  found  that  when  they  began  to  dwell 
on  their  intimate  personal  experiences,  they  practically  all 


22  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

would  invariably  bring  up  matters  appertaining  to  sex.  He 
was  so  impressed  witli  tliis  fact  that  he  asserted  that  in  the 
normal  sex  life  no  neurosis  is  possible.  Even  before  him, 
neurologists  of  the  old  school  have  always  known  that  sex 
played  a  part  in  nervous  conditions,  but  to  them  it  was  just 
gross  sex,  it  meant  just  the  physical  elements  of  sex.  Freud 
formulated  a  new  concept  of  sex.  To  him  the  sexual  life 
of  the  individual  meant  his  love-life.  He  used  the  term  in 
the  broadest  sense,  as  embracing  not  merely  the  gross  sexual, 
or  the  physical  elements,  but  all  that  we  commonly  associate 
with  love.  He  found  that  the  conceptions  of  sex  in  vogue  at 
his  time  were  practically  all  false.  It  was  generally  held  that 
there  was  no  manifestation  of  sex  until  the  boy  or  girl  reached 
the  age  of  puberty,  when,  suddenly,  and  in  some  mysterious 
way,  the  sexual  impulses  appeared.  Freud  found,  however, 
that  there  were  sexual  experiences,  or  feelings  very  much 
allied  to  sex,  at  the  age  of  six  or  seven,  or  even  earlier.  What 
many  people  consider  as  something  other  than  sex  is  really 
an  integral  phase  of  it.  Love  and  sex  are  the  essential  com- 
ponents of  the  love-life  and  they  go  hand  in  hand.  Let  me 
assure  you  that  I  have  seen  a  number  of  cases  where  all  so- 
called  love  existed,  but  there  could  not  be  normal  sex  rela- 
tions, and  tliere  was  a  separation  or  a  divorce.  Consider, 
for  instance,  the  case  of  a  woman  who  marries  a  man  after 
being  in  love  with  him  for  about  six  years  j  upon  marriage, 
it  is  found  that  he  cannot  consummate  his  marital  agreement ; 
we  find  very  soon  a  separation  often  followed  by  a  divorce. 

We  maintain  that  sex  is  born  with  the  individual  just  as 
he  is  born  with  every  other  organ,  every  other  function.  The 
child  is  born  without  teeth,  but  upon  examination,  you  will 
find  that  the  pulps  are  there  from  which  the  teeth  will  later 
come.  The  child  has  all  the  partial  impulses  of  sex,  of  love, 
and  of  the  mechanisms  that  later  go  to  make  up  the  special- 
ized function.    You  can  actually  see  a  child  of  a  few  weeks 


THE  CATHARTIC  METHOD  23 

react  to  the  feeling  of  like  and  dislike;  observe  an  infant  of 
say  a  few  weeks,  smile  at  it  and  it  will  respond,  frown  at  it 
and  it  will  make  faces.  What  does  a  child  of  that  age  know, 
you  ask.  It  has  these  partial  impulses  at  birth  and  it  reacts 
accordingly.  This  attitude  toward  sex  has  been  subjected 
to  a  great  deal  of  criticism  and  Freud  has  been  accused  of 
laying  an  undue  amount  of  stress  on  sex;  many  have  been 
and  still  are  opposed  to  his  theories  on  that  very  account. 
They  declare  that  there  are  a  great  many  cases  that  show 
nothing  irregular  in  their  sexual  life  and  yet  are  nervous. 
Without  going  into  details  at  present,  I  wish  to  say  that  my 
own  experience  very  definitely  corroborates  Freud's  position. 
Continuing  to  delve  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  recesses  of 
the  mind,  Freud  also  began  to  see  more  and  more  clearly  the 
intimate  relation  existing  between  the  dream  and  the  patient's 
innermost  thoughts  and  feelings.  In  dwelling  on  some  sig- 
nificant emotional  experience,  the  patient  would  very  often 
say:  "J^^t  at  that  time,  I  had  a  peculiar  dream.  I  was 
walking  and  a  man  came  up  to  me  and  attacked  me;  I  was 
terribly  frightened;  I  tried  to  run  but  could  not;  I  was  just 
rooted  to  the  spot."  At  first  Freud  paid  no  more  attention  to 
these  dreams  than  any  other  intelligent  man  of  his  time. 
But  gradually,  as  he  listened  to  them,  he  began  to  see  that 
they  must  have  some  place  in  the  vital  economy  of  the  mind, 
for  everything  in  the  physical  or  mental  spheres  must  have 
a  function.  In  time  he  was  convinced  that  the  dream  is  not 
a  mere  Jumble,  a  senseless  mechanism,  but  that  it  represents 
frequently  in  symbolic  form  the  person's  inmost  thoughts 
and  desires,  that  it  represents  a  hidden  wish.  He  thus  de- 
veloped his  monumental  work,  the  greatest  in  the  century,  in 
my  opinion,  'The  Interpretation  of  Dreams."  He  found  that 
the  dream  offered  the  best  access,  that  it  was  the  via  regia, 
as  he  put  it,  to  the  unconscious ;  that  it  was  of  tremendous 
help  not  only  in  the  treatment,  but  also  in  the  diagnosis. 


24  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

And  finally,  as  Freud  continued  to  observe  and  study  his 
cases  more  and  more  deeply,  as  his  horizon  widened  and 
widened  all  the  time,  he  began  to  see  more  and  more  that 
everything  in  the  psychic  life  has  meaning,  everything  has  a 
cause,  nothing  that  the  individual  may  do  or  say  is  meaning- 
less. Every  slip  of  the  tongue,  or  mistake  in  writing,  or  some 
unconscious  gesture  or  movement  has  significance.  I  asked 
a  friend  the  other  day  over  the  'phone  where  he  had  been 
since  his  marriage ;  and  he  replied  that  he  went  on  a  "money- 
hoon."  He  meant  to  say  "honeymoon,"  but  when  a  man 
marries,  money  begins  to  play  a  rather  significant  part.  If 
we  pay  attention  to  what  is  being  said  and  done  about  us, 
we  shall  find  a  tremendous  amount  of  material  that  is  un- 
usually interesting.  We  will  learn  later  on  why  we  make 
these  mistakes.  Freud's  fascinating  book  on  "The  Psycho- 
pathology  of  Everyday  Life"  deals  with  this  subject  and  I 
would  advise  those  who  are  anxious  to  read  his  work  to 
begin  with  this  one,  for  it  is  the  simplest  of  all  his  writings. 
In  probing  the  unconscious,  Freud  thus  discovered  material 
that  is  of  the  utmost  importance  not  only  in  the  treatment  of 
patients  but  also  in  the  development  of  normal  people,  in  edu- 
cation, folklore,  religion,  art  and  literature,  and  every  other 
field  of  human  interest.  We  may  say  that  he  has  practically 
rewritten  all  of  mental  science  and  created  new  concepts  in 
every  sphere  of  mental  activity.  With  his  work  as  a  starting 
point,  new  fields  of  thought  and  investigation  have  opened  all 
the  time,  and  there  gradually  has  grown  up  an  enormous 
literature  on  psychoanalysis,  swelling  all  the  time  in  the 
variety  and  range  of  the  subject  matter,  all  growing  out  of 
the  effort  to  help  humanity,  to  treat  those  unfortunate  people 
for  whom  nothing  could  be  done  in  the  past, — the  so-called 
"nervous"  people. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  SYMPTOM:    ITS  NATURE  AND  FUNCTION 

In  our  previous  discussion  we  noted  that  a  neurotic  symp- 
tom, such  as,  for  instance,  the  pain  in  that  young  woman's 
arm,  is  really  a  monument  of  the  past;  that  pseud's 
through  the  symptom  the  neurotic  is  able  to  concept 
dwell  on  the  painful  episode  in  the  past,  to  com-  sez 
plain,  and  weep  over  it  very  much  like  one  who  would 
shed  tears  to-day  over  the  battle  of  Lexington,  or  over 
the  Spanish  inquisition.  I  said  that  the  patient  had  to 
repress  certain  ideas  and  emotions  because  they  were  in- 
tolerable and  distressing;  he  had  to  forget  a  disagreeable 
situation  to  which  he  could  not  adequately  react.  We  say 
that  the  ideas  and  emotions  were  strangulated;  tliat  they 
were  pushed  into  the  unconscious.  It  is  different,  of  course, 
with  the  average  normal  person :  if  he  is  insulted  and  feels 
hurt,  let  us  say,  he  will  either  try  to  retaliate,  or  if  he  cannot 
do  that  out  of  weakness,  or  cowardice,  he  will  very  soon 
manage  to  "get  over,"  as  we  say,  the  whole  affair,  to  shake 
himself  free  from  it.  Some  people,  however,  by  virtue  of  the 
fact  that  they  are  made  of  finer,  more  sensitive  substance, 
of  perhaps  better  clay,  cannot  forget  it  and  they  will  dwell  on 
it  continually.  They  were  commonly  designated  as  nervous 
persons,  or  neurotics ;  they  were  generally  considered  as 
being  defective  in  one  way  or  another,  as  mental  degenerates. 
From  what  I  have  already  pointed  out  you  may  readily  see 
that  this  conception  is  entirely  erroneous;  that,  on  the  con- 

25 


26  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

trary,  far  from  being  mental  degenerates,  they  are  as  a  class 
high  types  of  individuals. 

This  does  not  mean,  however,  that  those  who  are  mentally 
deficient  do  not  have  hysterical  mechanisms.  The  crucial 
point  is  that  they  do  not  manifest  a  definite  neurosis  as  we 
understand  and  describe  it.  When  a  young  lady  who  has 
been  well-bred,  experiences  a  sexual  feeling,  she  will  often 
revolt  against  it;  and  particularly  if  she  has  not  been  en- 
lightened in  matters  of  sex,  she  will  make  an  earnest  effort  to 
crowd  it  out  of  consciousness,  because  she  regards  the  ex- 
perience of  and  by  itself  as  something  distinctly  ugly,  wrong, 
immoral.  On  the  other  hand,  defectives  who  are  never 
able  to  assume  those  inhibitions  that  society  has  imposed 
upon  the  average  individual  are  thus  able,  by  virtue  of  their 
deficiency,  to  commit  all  sorts  of  immoral  acts.  Only  a 
woman  who  is  a  defective  can  be  a  prostitute  in  every  real 
sense  of  the  word ;  a  normal  woman  might  perhaps  think  of 
being  one,  but  only  a  moral  idiot  or  an  imbecile  can  be  one. 
The  normal  woman  is  so  constituted  that  prostitution  is  alto- 
gether out  of  the  question;  she  may  perhaps  have  some  sort 
of  an  amour  with  a  man,  but  she  will  not  resort  to  prostitu- 
tion in  the  narrow  sense  of  the  word.  Nor  does  a  normal 
man  become  a  habitual  criminal.  He  may  swear  off  the 
taxes,  or  take  an  occasional  false  oath,  but  he  is  not  going  to 
make  a  practice  of  committing  crimes.  The  inhibitions  that 
are  imposed  upon  us  by  society  are  so  strong  and  exacting 
that  we  revert  of  ourselves  to  the  time-old  conclusion  that 
"honesty  is  the  best  policy" :  it  is  the  most  sensible,  the  most 
practical,  the  most  pragmatic  policy;  it  allows  us  a  measure 
of  freedom  that  we  otherwise  could  not  enjoy.  Neverthe- 
less, there  is  no  doubt  that  civilization  with  its  manifold  in- 
hibitions, impositions,  and  prohibitions  makes  it  indeed  very 
difficult  for  us  to  live.  There  is  not  a  human  being  who  does 
not  feel  the  burden  of  civilization  lie  heavy  on  his  shoulders; 


SYMPTOM :  ITS  NATURE  AND  FUNCTION      27 

and  though  we  all  bear  the  cross  as  patiently  as  we  know 
how,  who  of  us  in  his  heart  of  hearts  does  not  find  himself 
sometimes  discontented  and  complaining?  That  is  the  price 
we  have  to  pay  for  civilization.  Sometimes  the  injustice 
heaped  upon  a  predisposed  individual  is  so  great  and  over- 
whelming, that,  as  his  deeper  sense  of  morality  stays  his 
rash  hand  from  some  criminal  act,  he  becomes  neurotic ;  and 
sometimes  he  goes  even  further,  he  becomes  psychotic.  That 
is  the  way  he  tries  to  purge  his  bosom  of  all  "perilous  stuff." 

I  am  using  the  terms  "neurotic"  and  "psychotic"  and  I  wish 
that  you  note  the  difference  between  them.  A  neurosis  is  a 
nervous  disease  or  a  nervous  disturbance  such  as  we  have 
seen  in  the  case  of  the  young  woman  who  had  that  pain  in 
the  arm,  for  instance.  It  has  nothing  to  do  with  insanity. 
The  neurotic  or  psychoneurotic  is  perfectly  sane.  What  is 
more,  he  is  usually  above  the  average  person  in  mental  de- 
velopment. A  psychosis  is  a  mental  disorder;  the  psychotic 
patient  suffers  from  some  form  of  insanity.  He  need  not 
necessarily,  of  course,  have  anything  in  common  with  the 
mental  defective.  While  I  am  on  this  point,  I  would  also 
have  you  distinguish  functional  from  organic  insanity.  The 
latter  is  due  to  some  physical  disturbance  like  certain  poisons, 
injuries  to  the  brain,  or  abnormal  growths.  The  functional 
cases  are  those  whose  brains  are  apparently  normal ;  that  is 
to  say,  if  you  examine  the  brain  of  a  paranoiac  and  that  of  a 
brilliant  man,  you  will  find  no  essential  difference  between 
them;  the  former  shows  no  pathological  condition. 

In  mental  diseases  there  are  two  important  entities  that 
were  discovered  by  Kraepelin,  and  as  I  shall  have  occasion 
to  refer  to  them  from  time  to  time,  in  this  course  of  lectures, 
it  may  be  well  to  say  a  few  words  about  them  in  this  con- 
nection. On  some  future  occasion  I  hope  to  enter  into  them 
in  more  detail.  Kraepelin  found  that  those  young  patients 
whom  he  found  in  the  hospital  and  who  were  diagnosed  as 


28  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

sometimes  suffering  from  mania,  and  sometimes  from  melan- 
cholia, or  other  conditions,  showed  a  definite  form  of  in- 
sanity which  he  called  dementia  praecox.  It  is  a  chronic, 
progressive  form  of  insanity,  which  once  developed,  can 
never  be  cured,  and  only  on  rare  occasions  do  sufferers  of  it 
sufficiently  improve  to  be  sent  home,  in  which  case,  they 
cannot  completely  adjust  themselves,  and  what  is  even  more 
distressing,  they  usually  require  constant  care  and  atten- 
tion. Probably  seventy-five  per  cent  of  patients  of  this  type 
are  between  the  ages  of  fifteen  and  twenty-five;  when  they 
become  insane,  they  may  show  symptoms  of  mania  or  melan- 
cholia or  both,  but  the  principal  feature  is  the  emotional 
deterioration.  That  is  to  say,  what  we  first  notice  is  that 
they  grow  careless  and  indifferent  about  their  personal  ap- 
pearance, their  surroundings  and  the  people  about  them, 
A  very  intelligent  college  student,  for  instance,  loses  in- 
terest in  his  work  and  does  not  care  a  farthing  whether  he 
passes  his  examinations  or  not.  Listless  and  unconcerned, 
he  sits  and  gazes  into  space ;  doctors  and  parents  regard  this, 
at  first,  as  mere  laziness.  The  condition  continues  for  years ; 
he  may  be  taken  to  a  doctor  who  diagnoses  it  as  neurasthenia. 
Some  time  later,  he  may  suddenly  do  something  quite  ab- 
surd and  the  parents  wake  up  to  the  seriousness  of  the  situa- 
tion ;  or  he  may  commit  some  gross  act  in  public  and  be  ar- 
rested and  sent  to  the  hospital  for  the  insane.  Now  this  is 
one  of  the  greatest  entities  in  mental  diseases,  I  may  safely 
say  that  the  bulk  in  the  insane  hospitals  is  made  up  of  just 
this  group  and  the  prognosis  is  very  bad.  As  I  have  said, 
patients  of  this  type  never  recover ;  they  sometimes  improve 
sufficiently  for  the  average  layman  to  consider  normal,  but 
the  majority  of  them  never  leave  the  asylum.  They  always 
retain  a  mental  scar. 

Another  entity  which  Kraepelin  discovered  was  the  so- 
called  manic  depressive  group  of  insanity;  patients  afflicted 


SYMPTOM:  ITS  NATURE  AND  FUNCTION     .29 

with  this  disease  manifest  sometimes  symptoms  of  mania, 
that  is,  a  condition  of  marked  excitement  and  exaltation,  and 
sometimes  melancholia,  that  is,  a  condition  of  extreme  de- 
pression and  retardation  of  thought  and  action.  He  found 
that  cases  that  sometimes  thus  show  mania  and  sometimes 
melanchoha  run  a  definite  course  throughout  life;  they 
usually  have  attacks  of  melancholia  followed  by  mania,  after 
which  there  is  an  interval  ranging  from  a  few  months  to  a 
few  years ;  they  then  begin  a  new  cycle.  If  you  examine  the 
life  history  of  a  patient  who  may  have  such  attacks,  you  find 
that  they  last  a  certain  period,  and  then  he  recovers.  Such 
patients  are  designated  in  common  parlance,  as  crazy,  par- 
ticularly when  they  have  the  manic  attacks.  They  may  have 
four  or  six  or  ten  attacks  of  melancholia  during  their  life, 
soon  shake  off  the  depression  and  recover,  and  not  show  the 
slightest  mental  scar. 

When  the  first  of  these  entities,  dementia  praecox,  was  in- 
vestigated a  few  years  ago  in  the  Manhattan  State  Hospital 
in  New  York,  it  was  found  that  over  70  per  cent  of  the  cases 
had  open  delusions  of  sex.  If  the  investigation  had  gone  a 
little  further,  and  sex  were  taken  to  mean  what  Freud  gen- 
erally designates  as  sex,  that  is,  the  individual's  love-life,  I 
have  not  the  slightest  doubt  but  what  it  would  have  been 
found  to  be  100  per  cent.  According  to  the  common  con- 
ception of  sex,  in  other  words,  a  woman  fondling  a  bundle 
of  rags,  as  if  it  were  her  baby,  was  not  regarded  as  mani- 
festing a  sexual  disturbance;  we,  however,  look  upon  the 
case  as  being  sexual,  because  it  deals  with  her  love-life.  If 
people  generally  would  regard  sex  in  the  light  that  we  do, 
they  would  readily  see  that  it  is  present  in  all  mental  dis- 
turbances. Thus  Freud's  dictum  that  no  neurosis  is  possible 
in  a  normal  sex  life  holds  true  even  in  the  psychosis.  I 
have  had  the  privilege  of  addressing  a  large  gathering  of  lay- 
men some  time  ago,  and  it  was  noteworthy  that  after  I  had 


30  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

explained  to  them  in  what  broad  sense  Freud  and  his  pupils 
use  the  term  sex,  their  former  resentment  was  gone;  some  of 
them  declared  that  if  by  sex  we  thus  mean  everything  re- 
lating and  growing  out  of  the  love-life  of  the  individual, 
there  was  no  question  at  all  but  what  they  were  absolutely 
in  accord  with  our  stand. 

We  can  lay  it  down  as  a  fundamental  that  if  a  person's 
love-life  is  adequately  adjusted,  his  adjustment  to  life  gener- 
ally is  normal.  On  the  other  hand,  those  who  are  unadjusted, 
suffering  from  a  neurosis  or  psychosis,  are  maladjusted  sex- 
ually. Let  us  not  imagine  for  a  moment  that  there  is  anything 
degenerate  in  an  individual  who  is  thus  imbued  with  con- 
scious or  unconscious  sex  cravings;  we  are  born  with  the 
impulses,  and  it  is  only  the  person  who  does  not  possess  them 
that  is  really  abnormal ;  he  is  as  unfortunate  as  those  who  are 
born  deaf  and  dumb.  The  normal  average  person  has  a  love- 
life  and  it  has  to  manifest  itself  in  some  way;  it  is  j'ust  as 
essential  for  a  person  to  have  an  outlet  in  his  love-life  as  to 
have  pure  air  and  food  to  sustain  himself;  if  he  has  not,  he 
eventually  has  to  suffer  for  it.  Now  civilization  has 
rendered  the  normal  outlet  very  difficult:  with  the  advance 
of  civilization  the  struggle  for  existence  has  been  more  and 
more  lightened,  but  as  far  as  satisfying  the  emotion  of  love 
is  concerned,  he  finds  himself  in  a  somewhat  embarrassing 
and  critical  situation :  with  the  advance  of  civilization,  the 
outward  expression  of  love  has  become  more  and  more  diffi- 
cult. Our  sex  impulses  are  most  assiduously  guarded; 
society  is  most  severe  in  its  censorship  of  all  manifestations 
of  sex :  the  sex  impulses  are  continually  subjected  to  a  merci- 
less criticism.  In  our  Anglo-Saxon  communities,  they  have 
not  even  the  esthetic  and  social  outlet,  because  of  the  too 
great  separation  that  we  find  between  the  sexes.  The  result 
is  that,  owing  to  the  matrimonial  difficulties  and  the  two 
children  system,  the  women  especially  who  have  not  been 


SYMPTOM:  ITS  NATURE  AND  FUNCTION      31 

able  to  express  themselves  adequately  for  centuries  and  whose 
lot  is  growing  harder  and  harder  in  our  civilization,  suffer 
from  a  marked  need  of  love.  If  you  find  a  woman  de- 
pressed and  out  of  sorts  with  herself  and  weeping,  who  can- 
not tell  you  what  is  ailing  her,  you  may  safely  conclude  that 
she  is  craving  for  love;  give  her  the  necessary  love  outlet 
through  happy  marriage  and  children,  and  she  will  have  no 
more  crying  spells.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  hysteria  has 
always  been  characterized  by  these  crying  spells,  but  no  one 
ever  made  any  effort  to  discover  this  underlying  cause.  A 
mother  may  suddenly  lose  her  only  child  whom  she  loves 
deeply.  If  she  is  a  sensitive  woman  who  receives  no  love 
from  her  husband  she  will  often  develop  a  neurosis,  for  now 
that  the  child  has  gone  out  of  her  life,  she  has  been  cut  off 
from  her  only  love  outlet.  There  is  nothing  degenerate  in 
this ;  it  is  no  more  degenerate  than  to  have  pneumonia,  or 
tuberculosis,  or  a  broken  leg. 

Some  time  ago  a  young  woman  consulted  me,  because,  as 
she  said,  she  was  extremely  nervous ;  she  declared  that  she 
suffered  from  insomnia,  that  her  appetite  was  poor,  and  that 
she  entertained  peculiar  thoughts.  When  asked  what  she 
meant  by  peculiar  thoughts,  she  replied  that  she  simply 
could  not  stomach  her  mother  who  was  constantly  "getting 
in  her  way."  Whenever,  for  instance,  she  wished  to  do 
something,  however  trifling,  her  mother  stood  in  the  way. 
There  was  nothing  of  love  or  sex  as  we  commonly  under- 
stand these  terms,  so  that  to  one  who  is  not  accustomed  to 
our  viewpoint,  it  would  have  shown  nothing  wrong  sexually. 
But  as  there  is  a  very  vital  and  intimate  relation  between 
child  and  parent,  there  was  really  a  disturbance  in  the  love- 
life  of  this  young  woman.  So  you  see  how  different  our 
conception  of  sex  is  from  that  ordinarily  held. 

Some  women  will  sometimes  say  to  me  with  manifest 
feeling:    "Now,  doctor,  you  don't  have  to  ask  me  about  love 


32  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

or  sex,  for  I  never  experienced  such  a  thing  in  my  life,  and 
what  is  more,  I  never  bother  with  such  trifles."  But  let  us 
remember  that  love  is  the  very  mainspring  and  breath  of  life, 
the  vis  z'italis,  as  it  were.  Indeed,  everything  in  life  may  be 
reduced  to  two  fundamental  instincts :  hunger  and  love ;  they 
are  the  supreme  rulers  of  the  world,  as  Schiller  has  put  it : 

"Einstweilen,   bis   den    Bau    der   Welt, 
Philosophic  zusammen  halt 
Erhiilt  sie  das  Getriibe 
Dutch  Hunger  und  durch  Liebe." 

From  a  purely  biological  standpoint,  the  impulse  of  hunger 
or  self-preservation  has  gradually  lost  its  importance  with 
the  advance  of  civilization ;  it  has,  however,  not  entirely  been 
eliminated.  We  still  have  to  work  for  the  necessities  of  life, 
but  it  is  no  longer  that  bitter  and  dangerous  struggle  of 
primitive  times  when  a  man  was  compelled  to  forage  and 
risk  his  life.  To-day  no  one  need  really  starve  from  hunger ; 
and  what  is  more,  he  is  not  permitted  to  do  so,  even  if  he 
should  want  to.  How  zealously  do  the  authorities  work  to 
break  a  hunger-strike!  I  myself  have  fed  insane  persons 
through  the  nose  for  as  long  as  two  and  three  years  until  they 
consented  to  take  nourishment  in  the  normal  way.  But  the 
satisfaction  of  the  sex  cravings  has  become,  as  we  have  said, 
a  more  and  more  distressing  problem  with  the  advance  of 
civilization.  We  find  that  in  the  whole  range  of  the  animal 
kingdom  nature  has  made  definite  provisions  for  sex  which 
begins  to  manifest  itself  at  puberty.  But  in  a  state  of  civil- 
ization the  human  being  cannot  live  as  the  animal,  and  instead 
of  exercising  his  biological  functions  as  destined  by  nature,  is 
forced  by  society  to  defer  them  to  a  later  period  of  his  ex- 
istence. It  means,  of  course,  a  tremendous  amovmt  of  con- 
trol and  effort  on  the  part  of  the  individual ;  and  it  may  be 
of  interest  for  you  to  know  that  there  is  not  a  young  man 
or  woman  with  whom  I  have  come  into  intimate  touch  who 


SYMPTOM:  ITS  NATURE  AND  FUNCTION      33 

has  not  had  trying-  and  terrible  struggles  in  thus  repressing 
the  sexual  feelings. 

I  would  have  you  note  here  that  our  conception  of  sex 
applies  also  to  children.  This  may  sound  a  bit  startling  to 
you,  so  let  me  proceed  at  once  to  illustrate  what  I  mean  with 
one  or  two  examples:  A  child  of  about  three  and  a  half 
years  old  absolutely  refuses  to  do  whatever  it  is  bidden;  it 
has  been  an  angelic  little  creature,  and  suddenly  a  complete 
transformation  occurs.  It  cries,  resists  every  effort  to  make 
it  do  anything  and  is  absolutely  unmanageable;  the  doctor 
has  been  called  in,  but  medicines  have  proved  ineffective. 
Here  is  the  history  of  the  case:  It  was  the  youngest  of  a 
few  children  in  the  home ;  the  parents  have  separated ;  it  was 
found  that  the  mother  carried  on  an  amour  with  a  certain 
man  and  she  naturally  had  to  leave  the  house;  the  children 
were  placed  in  charge  of  a  very  fine  governess.  The  mother 
was  a  woman  of  an  emotional  type  and  very  much  attached  to 
her  children.  The  governess  was  a  typical  English  lady,  cold 
and  strict  with  the  children.  The  older  children  who  were  all 
past  the  fifth  year  managed  to  get  along  quite  well;  if  they 
resented  anything  at  all,  they  registered  their  protests  in  the 
open  and  the  affair  was  over.  But  this  youngest  child  at 
once  began  to  cry  and  behave  in  the  strange  fashion  I  have 
described.  The  symptoms  surprised  me;  it  behaved  like  a 
grown-up  person  suffering  from  dementia  praecox.  Of 
course,  I  decided  at  once  upon  the  nature  of  the  cure.  The 
child's  love-life  was  disturbed;  it  was  accustomed  to  re- 
ceive love  from  its  mother,  and  suddenly  a  new  environment 
interfered;  this  cold-blooded  woman  came  into  its  life,  who 
looked  at  everything  objectively,  impersonally;  the  child  was 
pining  for  the  mother's  affection.  It  took  me  quite  a  little 
while  before  I  had  matters  so  arranged  that  the  mother 
could  see  the  child  every  other  day.    It  soon  recovered  and 


34  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

has  been  well  ever  since.  We  say  there  was  a  disturbance  in 
the  sexual  or  love-life  of  the  child. 

Or  consider  the  case  of  another  child  of  four  years  who 
was  perfectly  well  until  the  parents  decided  to  send  away 
the  French  governess.  The  little  girl  grew  very  depressed, 
was  bitterly  incensed  at  her  mother  and  remarked  to  her 
father:  "If  mademoiselle  will  be  sent  away,  I'll  die  herself." 
She  had  not  yet  learned  to  say  "myself."  The  father,  who 
was  a  physician,  was  very  much  alarmed ;  he  came  to  me  and 
declared  quite  frankly  that  he  did  not  know  what  to  do.  I 
assured  him  that  I  had  no  doubt  at  all  that  if  the  child  had 
been  given  enough  attention  by  the  mother,  she  would  not 
behave  in  that  way;  that  now  that  it  was  decided  to  send 
away  the  governess,  upon  whom  she  was  depending  for  her 
love,  she  felt  that  she  would  be  left  all  alone.  Indeed,  how 
would  an  adult  feel,  if  he  were  separated  from  the  one 
person  whom  he  loves?  The  doctor  assured  me  that  that 
was  exactly  the  situation;  that  he  always  felt  that  his  wife 
neglected  the  little  girl.  I  advised  him  to  see  that  his  wife 
take  her  place  as  mother  to  the  child,  play  with  her,  and  give 
her  of  her  afifection,  and  then  dismiss  the  governess.  Thus 
the  problem  was  solved :  the  little  girl  received  a  normal  love 
outlet. 

We  must  remember,  however,  that  the  sexual  life  of  the 
child  is  different  from  that  of  the  adult.  The  sex-life  of  the 
former  consists  of  what  we  generally  think  of  as  love;  it 
likes  to  be  petted  and  fondled  and  humored,  it  likes  to  re- 
ceive attention  and  have  its  way  in  its  own  little  world. 
Later  on,  when  it  grows  into  manhood  or  womanhood,  there 
will  be  other  manifestations,  which  we  do  not  find,  of  course, 
in  childhood.  Yet  these  first  and  early  emotional  reactions 
are  just  as  much  a  part  of  its  sex-life  as  the  later  ones. 
Whenever  we  find,  then,  an  emotional  disturbance,  let  us  not 
fail  to  examine  the  parents'  behavior,  if  it  is  present  in  a 


SYMPTOM:  ITS  NATURE  AND  FUNCTION      35 

child;  if  in  an  adult,  let  us  remember  the  words  of  Dumas 
pere:  "cherchez  la  femme." 

In  speaking  about  the  neurotic,  we  said  that  the  symptom 
represents  some  painful  emotional  experience  in  the  past 
which  he  tried  to  crowd  out  of  consciousness,  to 
forget.  Thus  it  is  in  a  very  real  sense,  an  emo-  symptom 
tional  outlet,  and  that  is  why  patients  intrinsi-  outlet 
cally,  though  unconsciously,  are  loathe  to  give 
it  up;  there  is,  as  we  have  said,  a  morbid  gain.  It  some- 
times happens  that  there  can  be  no  normal,  wholesome  outlet 
for  some  loss  or  misfortune,  from  the  very  nature  of  things, 
we  might  say.  Take,  for  instance,  the  case  of  a  woman  who 
has  lost  her  husband,  and  has  no  children,  no  relatives,  no 
financial  resources.  She  is  also  in  no  condition,  by  virtue  of 
age  and  other  factors,  to  think  that  she  can  go  into  the  world 
and  find  some  normal  outlet,  such  as  marriage.  She  be- 
comes hysterical  and  we  find  her  in  a  hospital.  She  is  in- 
telligent and  sensible  and  when  you  begin  to  discuss  her 
case  with  her,  she  will  presently  tell  you  that  she  really  does 
not  know  what  she  can  or  will  do  when  she  leaves  the 
hospital.  When  you  assure  her  that  you  will  cure  her,  she 
begins  to  worry  about  the  awful  void  ahead  of  her:  for  in- 
deed, she  has  nothing  to  live  for.  In  other  words,  the  doctor 
who  attempts  to  cure  her,  is  face  to  face  with  a  herculean 
task.  We  had,  of  course,  an  altogether  dififerent  situation 
in  the  case  of  that  young  woman  who  had  that  pain  in  her 
arm.  One  could  see  at  once  that  she  could  and  ought  to  be 
cured ;  there  was  everything  in  her  favor ;  her  complaining 
about  the  pain  and  her  consulting  doctors  was  really  a  sub- 
stitute, I  might  say,  for  the  love  for  which  she  was  ardently 
craving;  all  that  she  had  to  do  was  to  learn  to  face  reality. 
In  proportion,  then,  as  a  normal  outlet  is  lacking,  the  patient 
will  continue  to  hold  on  to  the  symptom  more  and  more 


36  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

firmly.  Thus,  given  two  young  people  who  are  equally  sick, 
if  one  derives  a  greater  morbid  gain  from  the  neurosis  than 
the  other,  he  will  remain  sick  much  longer  than  the  other  to 
whom  fortune  has  not  been  so  "kind."  The  time  required  to 
cure  a  patient  is  directly  proportional,  we  might  say,  to  the 
degree  in  which  he  is  morbidly  benefited  by  his  neurosis. 

In  the  same  way  there  are  persons  who  simulate  insanity ; 
it  is  in  itself  an  outlet,  a  sort  of  morbid  gain.  In  the  olden 
times  when  an  individual  dissembled  madness,  he  was 
brutally  punished  for  it;  the  doctor  would  presumably  cure 
him  by  the  very  simple  device  of  turning  a  hose  of  cold  water 
on  him.  If  he  survived  the  treatment,  he  was  fired  out  of 
the  hospital  with  very  little  ceremony.  But  let  us  not 
forget  that  even  those  cases  who  simulate  are  abnormal ;  no 
normal  persons  will  resort  to  such  an  outlet.  An  individual 
who  acts  in  this  fashion  is  sick  and  we  should  treat  him  as 
such.  To-day  we  impress  upon  him  that  we  know  he  is 
feigning,  but  we  do  not  treat  him  with  brutality.  The  com- 
missioner of  correction  asked  me  some  time  ago  to  examine 
a  man  of  this  type  who  was  accused  of  a  certain  crime. 
There  was  a  friend  of  mine  with  me  who  is  not  a  physician 
and  I  told  him  that  the  case  was  a  puzzle  to  medical  men. 
When  I  examined  this  fellow  he  played  crazy  and  did  all 
sorts  of  queer  things.  I  gave  him  a  thorough  examination 
in  the  presence  of  my  friend  whom  I  addressed  as  doctor. 
I  said:  "Doctor,  it  is  the  rarest  case  I  have  ever  seen,"  and 
I  mentioned  some  medical  name.  "I  am  quite  sure  that  in 
this  case  there  is  such  and  such  a  condition ;  just  to  cor- 
roborate the  diagnosis,  I'll  wager  that  if  I  take  the  man's  arm 
and  stretch  it  out,  he  will  hold  it  in  that  position  indefinitely." 
Before  I  had  the  opportunity  to  do  that,  he  did  it  himself; 
the  poor  fellow  tried  very  hard  to  feign  various  conditions. 
I  told  him  that  there  was  to  be  no  prevarication  and  he  soon 
confessed  that  he  was  deceiving  and  begged  me  to  help  him. 


SYMPTOM:  ITS  NATURE  AND  FUNCTION      37 

I  made  it  very  clear  to  him  that  I  would  help  him  on  the  con- 
dition that  he  be  straightforward  and  honest.  No  one  can 
feign  insanity.  When  a  person  tells  the  doctor  he  has 
pneumonia,  it  may  be  proven^ by  just  listening  to  the  chest. 
Likewise  in  insanity,  there  is  nothing  that  has  not  been  re- 
duced to  a  certain  definite  form  and  condition.  When  a 
person  is  really  insane,  his  insanity  is  manifest.  I  have 
never  found  any  one  who  has  succeeded  in  counterfeiting  it, 
and  I  have  seen  malingerers  here  and  abroad.  They  may 
succeed  in  bamboozling  some  doctors  who  do  not  know. 
You  will  occasionally  read  in  the  newspapers  that  some  men 
have  simulated  insanity  and  then  declare  that  they  are  not  at 
all  insane,  but  I  know  for  a  fact  that  a  real  insane  person 
would  be  the  last  one  to  plead  he  is  insane.  Let  us  bear  in 
mind  that  any  individual  who  tries  to  pretend  insanity  or 
hysteria,  no  matter  in  what  difficult  straits  he  find  himself, 
is  abnormal,  for  no  normal  person  would  resort  to  such  an 
outlet. 

We  see  this  mechanism  very  often  in  a  less  pronounced 
form.  A  patient  informed  me  once  that  when  she  was 
young  she  found  that  she  was  treated  well  when  sick,  and  so 
whenever  she  did  not  wish  to  go  to  school,  she  would  say  that 
she  had  a  headache.  That  was  her  way  of  solving  the  prob- 
lem. Now  she  really  has  those  headaches  and  is  unable  to 
do  important  work  that  she  even  likes,  though  it  is  note- 
worthy that  the  headaches  are  far  more  severe  when  she  has 
to  attend  to  something  she  dislikes. 

What  we  said  about  the  neurosis  applies  also  to  the  psy- 
chosis. Like  the  neurotic  symptom,  the  insane  condition 
serves  as  an  emotional  outlet,  it  enables  the  patient  to  realize 
his  wish.  Some  individuals  upon  experiencing  some  heavy 
shock  or  misfortune,  cannot  resign  themselves  to  the  actual 
reality.  The  problem  is  such  a  mooted  and  difficult  one 
that  in  order  to  solve  it  at  all  they  have  to  tear  themselves 


38  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

away  from  reality  completely.  When  they  become  insane, 
the  wish  that  they  desire  to  realize  is  then  fulfilled  in  their  in- 
sane condition.  Here,  too,  we  see  that  there  is  an  attempt  at 
adjoistment,  there  is  a  morbid  gain.  Let  me  give  you  an 
example : 

A  few  years  ago  there  was  much  discussion  in  New 
York  City  on  the  need  for  laborers  up  the  state  for  the 
harvest.  Many  tailors  and  people  in  similar  vocation  were 
then  out  of  employment;  one  of  these  men  who  was  quite 
poor  was  very  glad  to  take  advantage  of  the  opportunity, 
particularly  since  he  heard  he  would  earn  from  three  to 
four  dollars  a  day  and  free  board  besides.  When  he  was 
put  to  work  as  a  farmer,  however,  it  was  found  that  he  was 
not  at  all  fitted  or  strong  enough  for  the  work.  The  result 
was  that  he  was  made  a  fool  of  by  the  farmer  and  his  sons. 
He  became  quite  sullen  and  morose  and  when  once,  upon 
provocation,  he  dared  to  retort,  they  gave  him  a  sound 
thrashing  and  fired  him.  What  was  more,  they  would  not 
pay  him  what  was  due  him.  He  appealed  for  redress  in 
the  local  court  of  justice,  but  everybody  turned  a  deaf  ear 
on  him.  He  was  about  one  hundred  and  sixty  miles  away 
from  the  city,  and  as  he  could  not  scrape  up  any  money,  he 
was  compelled  to  walk  home.  He  reached  the  city,  fagged 
out  and  starved,  crying  for  revenge.  He  consulted  a  lawyer 
who  asked  him  for  ten  dollars  as  a  retainer :  the  poor  fellow 
did  not  have  a  cent.  He  was  at  a  loss :  wherever  he  turned 
he  could  receive  no  justice.  Burning  for  redress,  he  would 
perpetually  talk  about  it  to  his  wife;  he  could  not  shake  it 
ofT  from  his  mind.  One  day  he  became  fearfully  excited, 
he  shouted,  kicked  at  the  bedsteads,  tore  the  pillows,  heaping 
all  the  while  all  manner  of  abuse  on  the  farmer.  The  wife 
was  alarmed  and  sent  for  an  ambulance ;  he  was  taken  to  the 
Bellevue  hospital,  where  I  saw  him.  He  hallucinated  and 
was  continually  raging  against  the  farmer,  who  he  imagined 


SYMPTOM:  ITS  NATURE  AND  FUNCTION      39 

was  right  there  before  him.  He  soon  quieted  down  and 
after  talking  with  him  for  a  while  I  grasped  immediately 
the  true  nature  of  his  condition:  the  poor  man  behaved  in 
that  strange  fashion,  for  he  had  no  other  way  of  giving  vent 
to  his  feelings. 

I  might  tell  you  right  here  the  meaning  of  some  of  the 
terms  I  am  using.  By  hallucinations,  I  mean  false  percep- 
tions, that  is,  apparent  perceptions  without  corresponding 
external  objects.  If  a  person  sees  things  that  do  not  exist 
at  the  time,  he  is  suflfering  from  hallucinations  of  sight; 
if  he  hears  voices  when  nobody  is  talking  to  him,  he  suffers 
from  hallucinations  of  hearing;  if  he  mistakenly  feels  that 
an  animal,  for  instance,  is  crawling  in  his  stomach,  he  has 
a  sensory  hallucination.  Thus  all  the  senses  can  produce 
hallucinations.  An  illusion,  on  the  other  hand,  is  just  a 
perverted  sensation,  there  is  a  corresponding  external  object 
but  it  is  falsely  interpreted.  When  a  person,  for  instance, 
suffering  from  alcoholic  insanity,  declares  that  there  are 
snakes  crawling  over  a  carpet,  he  is  simply  misinterpreting 
the  figures  and  designs  there ;  he  calls  them  snakes  because 
of  certain  poisons  in  the  nerves  of  the  retina.  Thus,  too,  an 
individual  who  hears  some  one  talk  and  insists  that  the  latter 
is  talking  about  him,  whereas  he  really  is  not,  is  suffering 
from  an  illusion.  On  the  other  hand,  a  delusion  is  a  false 
idea  which  is  absolutely  fixed  and  from  which  you  cannot 
reason  the  patient  away.  When  a  man  informs  you  that 
he  is  the  emperor  of  China  and  you  know  that  he  is  an 
ordinary  New  York  tailor,  then  he  has  a  delusion  of 
grandeur ;  or  if  a  man  tells  you  he  is  the  real  pope  and  his 
enemies  have  substituted  a  sham  pope  in  his  place,  when  you 
know  that  he  is  perhaps  a  hod  carrier,  he  has  delusions  of 
grandeur  and  persecution. 

The  psychosis,  then,  being  a  form  of  abnormal  adjustment 
in  itself,  an  abnormal  attempt  at  a  solution  of  some  inner 


40  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

problem,  the  expressions  of  the  insane  cannot  be  meaning- 
less; they  have  significance  and  value  in  terms  of  the 
essential  psychic  conflicts.  Before  Freud  came  on  the  scene, 
no  attention  was  paid  to  the  utterances  of  the  insane.  We 
know  now  that  their  hallucinations  and  delusions  are  not 
at  all  meaningless  or  irrational,  that  they  have  their  raison 
d'etre.  In  no  light  sense,  may  we  say  that  there  is  method 
in  madness.  Take,  for  instance,  the  insane  woman  who  appar- 
ently falls  in  love  with  every  doctor.  Upon  examination,  you 
will  find  that  she  had  an  unhappy  love  affair  and  she  identifies 
some  other  man  with  her  lover  who  had  forsaken  her.  In 
other  words,  in  order  to  checkmate  nature,  as  one  might  say, 
she  tears  herself  away  from  reality.  It  is  in  itself  an  abnor- 
mal adjustment.  When  we  are  overtaken  by  some  misfor- 
tune, we  all  seek  refuge  in  different  ways;  some  throw 
themselves  into  scientific  or  literary  work,  others  into  social 
activity  or  business.  Thus  in  time  sorrow  loses  its  keen  edge. 
Some  people,  however,  cannot  do  this ;  they  represent  a 
special  type  of  sensitive  material.  More  than  50  per  cent 
of  all  the  patients  in  insane  asylums  are  of  this  type.  They 
are  men  and  women  who  could  not  learn  to  accept  the  facts, 
who  could  not  "forget."  Instead,  they  tore  themselves  away 
from  reality  altogether,  and  realized  their  wish  in  their  own 
way,  thus  solving  the  problem. 

It  has  been  pointed  out  that  the  symptom  is  the  resultant 

of  two  psychic  streams  both  striving  for  expression,  one,  the 

^jrjig  foreconscious,    subjecting    the    activity    of    the 

^^^1°"^  other,  the  unconscious,  to  a  sort  of  critique 
as  Com-  '  '  ^ 

promise  which  results  in  an  exclusion  from  consciousness. 
The  basic  meaning  of  the  symptom,  no  matter  what  the 
symptom  may  be,  whether  paralysis,  aphonia,  or  delirium, 
is  absolutely  unknown  to  the  person;  its  mechanisms  are 
entirely  incomprehensible  to  the  average  observer.     I  can 


SYMPTOM:  ITS  NATURE  AND  FUNCTION      41 

make  this  clear  to  you  by  giving  you  a  complete  example. 
A  woman  of  about  thirty-five  is  unhappily  married.  Her 
husband  treats  her  most  brutally  and  she  detests  him;  she 
would  leave  him  but  she  loves  her  children  deeply,  and  feels 
that  such  a  move  on  her  part  would  be  quite  detrimental 
to  their  good  name  and  welfare.  In  her  distress,  she  turns 
to  a  certain  friend  of  her  husband,  who  sympathizes  with 
her  and  is  very  eager  to  do  all  he  can  to  help  her  out  of 
her  difficulties.  In  the  course  of  time  they  fall  in  love. 
He  is  a  married  man  and  that,  of  course,  complicates  the 
situation  even  more.  He  assures  her  that  she  is  perfectly 
justified  in  behaving  as  she  does,  for  her  husband's  brutal 
treatment  is  without  doubt  unjust  and  reprehensible.  That, 
of  course,  carries  much  weight  with  her,  because  she  met 
this  man  originally  through  her  husband  who  was  a  former 
classmate  of  his.  They  begin  to  think  seriously  of  securing 
divorces  and  marrying,  but  here  again,  the  man  cannot 
resign  himself  to  the  idea  of  leaving  his  children.  This  is 
quite  characteristic  of  people  of  this  type;  they  can  never 
gather  sufficient  strength  to  carry  out  what  they  wish  to  do, 
they  are  so  much  under  the  influence  of  their  early  bringing- 
up.  Be  that  as  it  may,  they  played  with  the  idea  for  years. 
She  used  to  reproach  herself  for  her  conduct,  for  at  bottom 
she  was  really  quite  religious  and  regarded  matrimony  with 
a  deep  sense  of  sacredness.  In  time,  the  man  suggested 
sexual  relations,  to  which  she  objected  quite  strenuously. 

One  day  he  made  an  appointment  with  her  to  meet  her  at 
a  certain  place:  she  knew  very  definitely  just  what  the  nature 
of  the  rendezvous  would  be.  However,  she  apparently  de- 
cided to  go,  left  her  home,  and  walked  over  to  the  car  which 
passed  in  front  of  her  house.  As  she  was  waiting  for  it, 
she  suddenly  felt  a  pain  in  her  heart,  she  became  flushed,  her 
heart  began  to  palpitate,  and  she  feared  that  she  would  faint. 
An  officer  assisted  her  home  and  she  was  confined  to  bed. 


42  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

At  first  the  doctor  thought  she  had  heart  trouble,  but  after 
a  few  days  she  was  able  tc  leave  the  bed  and  it  was  found 
that  there  was  really  nothing  wrong  with  her  heart.  She 
presently  went  out  to  shop  and  the  moment  she  found  herself 
in  the  street  she  began  to  fear  that  she  would  have  another 
such  attack ;  she  returned  home  and  took  her  little  girl  with 
her,  so  that  she  might  not  be  alone  in  case  something  serious 
should  happen  to  her.  The  family  gradually  began  to  realize 
that  she  was  afraid  to  go  out  alone.  Finally  she  came  to 
see  me. 

What  is  the  deeper  significance  of  this  situation?  We 
see  here  two  opposite  psychic  streams  in  conflict.  From  a 
biological  viewpoint,  the  woman  was  entitled  to  her  share 
of  love  and  affection ;  there  was  the  primitive  emotion  which 
a  woman  of  this  type,  and  for  that  matter  every  woman, 
would  naturally  experience  when  confronted  with  a  situation 
of  this  character;  here  on  one  side  was  her  husband  who 
maltreated  her  and  on  the  other,  a  man  who  sympathized 
with  her,  loved  her  and  was  ready  to  help  her  in  every  way. 
But  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  the  thought  of  religion,  our 
early  training  and  society:  we  are  brought  up  to  feel  that 
such  an  emotion  is  immoral,  that  only  legitimate  love  is 
right.  And  so,  as  you  see,  there  was  a  constant  struggle ;  she 
felt  that  had  she  kept  the  rendezvous,  she  would  have  com- 
mitted adultery,  she  would  have  sinned,  and  so  unconsciously 
she  decided  not  to  go.  When  I  inquired  what  she  feared, 
when  she  went  out  into  the  street,  she  replied  that  she  was 
in  terror  of  falling.  You  see  what  she  really  had  in  mind 
was  a  moral  falling.  Her  fear  of  falling  and  perhaps  of 
being  run  over  and  killed  was  a  symbolic  representation  of 
her  fear  of  committing  sin.  Thus,  in  a  sense,  she  solved  the 
problem.  There  was  a  compromise  effected  by  the  two 
streams  in  the  form  of  the  symptom.  We  designate  a 
nervous  condition  of  this  type  as  an  "anxiety  hysteria."     It 


SYMPTOM:  ITS  NATURE  AND  FUNCTION      43 

is  a  psychoneurotic  disturbance  which  manifests  itself  pre- 
dominantly through  fear  or  anxiety.^ 

There  are,  of  course,  many  forms  of  nervous  disturbances, 
into  which  we  cannot  enter  here.  There  is  one  type  about 
which  I  may  say  a  few  words  right  now,  because  it  is  so 
commonly  referred  to.  It  manifests  itself  in  all  kinds  of 
obsessions,  doubts  and  fears,  and  is  known  as  a  "compulsion 
neurosis,"  that  is,  a  neurosis  which  is  characterized  through- 
out by  a  marked  compulsiveness  in  thought  and  act.  A 
patient  sufifering  of  such  a  condition  may  go  to  bed,  for 
instance,  then  pause  and  wonder  whether  she  locked  the  door, 
get  up,  assure  herself  that  she  did,  and  return  to  bed.  A 
minute  later  it  occurs  to  her  that  in  locking  it  she  may  have 
perhaps  unlocked  it,  and  so  she  cannot  rest  until  she  makes 
sure.  She  may  continue  to  go  through  this  little  performance 
perhaps  one  or  two  dozen  times  through  the  night.  We  call 
it  doubting  mania,  "folies  de  dout."  Some  sufferers  of  this 
type  have  a  tendency  to  reason  perpetually,  ad  nauseam.  A 
person  will  begin  to  reason  about  some  problem  that  he 
himself  knows  is  absolutely  absurd,  but  he  cannot  refrain 
from  doing  so.  A  man,  for  instance,  who  is  not  at  all  in- 
terested in  socialism  will  suddenly  begin  to  think  of  it;  no 
matter  where  and  when  he  meets  a  person  he  will  be  won- 
dering whether  that  person  is  a  socialist;  he  will  bombard 
people  with  the  most  absurd  questions  on  the  subject.  An- 
other man  who  is  not  a  bit  interested  in  hypnotism  will 
constantly  ask  questions  about  it;  he  consults  all  doctors 
who  have  the  reputation  of  being  specialists  on  the  subject 
and  finds  out  what  they  think  on  this  or  that  phase  of  it. 
He  feels  that  it  is  absolutely  important  that  he  should  know 
all  about  it. 

The  case  of  the  woman  I  have  just  described  is,  as  you 
see,  a  nervous  disturbance  essentially  growing  out  of  the 

*  This  particular  form  of  fear  is  known  as  "agoraphobia." 


44  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

conflict  between  what  she  considered  right  and  wrong,  moral 
and  immoral.  It  is  a  neurosis,  and  we  distinguish  it  from  a 
psychosis  in  that  the  latter  is  a  mental  disturbance  in  which 
the  individual,  unlike  the  neurotic,  detaches  himself  com- 
pletely from  reality  and  behaves  as  if  he  does  not  belong 
there  at  all.  To  illustrate :  A  young  lady  of  about  twenty- 
nine  is  taken  to  me  by  her  brother,  who  is  a  physician.  He 
informs  me  that  she  has  been  acting  strangely  for  the  last 
four  weeks,  and  he  fears  that  she  is  a  little  out  of  her  mind. 
She  insists  that  all  the  girls  in  the  shop  where  she  is  em- 
ployed talked  disparagingly  about  her;  she  cries,  does  not 
wish  to  leave  the  house,  and  wants  to  move  out  of  the 
neighborhood  because  all  the  neighbors  are  in  a  conspiracy 
against  her.  As  a  result,  she  is  in  a  state  of  marked  de- 
pression. Her  brother  is  right :  of  course  there  is  something 
wrong  with  an  individual  who  deems  himself  so  important 
and  popular  as  to  have  people  everywhere  talk  about  him. 
After  insisting  upon  her  to  tell  me  what  the  world  had  to 
say  about  her,  she  finally  said:  "Everybody  keeps  on  saying 
that  I  am  a  bad  girl,  that  I  have  committed  a  lot  of  sex 
crimes."  On  further  examination  I  learned  the  following: 
A  young  man  began  to  call  on  her  of  late ;  he  has  been  paying 
her  quite  a  little  attention.  Some  time  passed,  she  was 
feeling  well  apparently,  when  she  got  a  toothache.  (It  is 
significant  that  the  young  man  was  a  dentist.)  She  had  the 
tooth  extracted  and  as  gas  had  been  administered,  she  was  a 
little  nervous  and  delirious  after  the  operation.  Since  then 
she  had  entertained  those  ideas.  She  went  on  to  assure  me 
that  the  condition  is  entirely  due  to  the  fact  that  those  girls 
are  mean  and  jealous;  that  they  make  these  slanderous  re- 
marks about  her  person  because  they  are  anxious  to  estrange 
the  young  man  from  her.  Her  brother  then  told  me  that 
he  felt  quite  convinced  that  the  main  cause  for  her  nervous- 
ness is  the  fact  that  the  young  man  upon  whom  she  had 


SYMPTOM:  ITS  NATURE  AND  FUNCTION      45 

built  so  many  hopes,  has  not  shown  himself  enough  attentive 
of  late ;  that  in  fine,  he  stopped  calling  on  her. 

The  sexual  import  of  the  situation  is  quite  patent.  The 
girl  was  well  brought  up,  quiet  and  well-behaved,  and  re- 
spectable in  every  way.  Why  then  should  she  have  such 
delusions,  you  will  ask ;  they  would  seem  to  be  incompatible 
with  her  own  nature.  Now  there  is  a  mechanism  which  we 
call  "projection,"  by  virtue  of  which  we  throw  out  to  the 
outside  world  feelings  and  emotions  which  we  have  repressed. 
We  say  other  people  are  saying  or  doing  what  we  have  re- 
pressed, what  indeed,  we  ourselves  once  would  have  liked  to 
say  or  do.  Such  delusions  are  called  delusions  of  reference, 
Besiihungswahn,  in  German.  We  mean  by  this  that  a  per- 
son will  interpret  everything  that  is  being  said  by  people  in 
his  environment  as  referring  to  himself.  The  deeper  mean- 
ing of  the  situation,  then,  lay  jiist  in  this,  that  when  the  man 
stopped  calling  on  her,  everybody  in  her  home  began  to 
criticize  and  blame  her.  Her  mother  and  brother  declared 
that  she  was  by  no  means  bad-looking,  that  on  the  other 
hand,  she  was  quite  attractive,  intelligent  and  sensible,  that 
she  had  friends,  but  that  her  great  drawback  was  that  she 
was  too  "good."  She  had  native  gifts,  but  of  what  use  are 
they,  if  one  does  not  put  them  to  the  best  use?  That  was 
their  mode  of  reasoning.  In  other  words,  they  hardly 
troubled  to  disguise  the  fact  that  what  she  had  to  learn  yet 
was  to  be  a  trifle  bad.  Apropos  of  this,  I  might  say  that 
this  is  one  of  those  fanciful  emotions  that  practically  all 
moral  women  sometimes  secretly  desire  to  taste.  We  have 
named  it  the  "being  naughty  motive,"  the  "prostitution 
complex."  So  many  respectable  women  have  very  often  told 
me  that  they  do  wish  they  could  have  the  experience  of 
being  a  prostitute  for  an  hour  so  that  they  might  know  Just 
what  it  means.  They  are  shocked  by  the  very  thought,  but 
it  is  pleasing  and  thrilling  none  the  less.    This  woman  per- 


46  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

haps  never  thought  of  it,  but  when  it  was  driven  home  to 
her  that  she  lost  this  man  simply  because  she  kept  him  at 
such  a  distance,  because  she  adhered  too  strictly  to  the  little 
proprieties  and  conventions  of  social  life,  she  fully  realized 
its  significance  and  straightway  the  repressed  thought  comes 
to  the  surface  and  her  unconscious  wish  is  realized:  she  is 
really  immoral  and  for  that  reason  the  young  man  left  her. 
Thus,  she  who  is  at  bottom  an  ethical  individual  must  per- 
force come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  young  man  repulses 
her  because  she  is  bad,  and  immoral,  and  not  because  she  is 
too  good  and  moral. 

The  underlying  significance  of  all  these  conditions,  the 
nature  of  all  these  mechanisms,  have  not  been  understood, 
as  I  have  said,  before  Freud;  nowadays  we  can  always  find 
the  reason  of  these  phenomena  and  in  this  way  cure  most  of 
the  patients.  By  this,  of  course,  I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that 
psychoanalysis  is  the  panacea  in  all  nervous  and  mental 
diseases,  that  every  and  any  disease  is  amenable  to  the 
psychoanalytic  therapy.  I  wish  to  say,  on  the  contrary,  that 
this  treatment,  like  every  other,  has  its  marked  limitations. 
It  is  applicable  to  a  limited  number  of  diseases  only;  and 
furthermore,  the  person  who  is  treated  by  this  method  must 
be  an  individual  of  the  higher  type,  mentally,  morally,  and 
in  every  other  way.  Every  one  can  be  psychoanalyzed,  but 
analyzing  and  curing  a  patient  are  two  entirely  different 
matters ;  and  the  wise  physician  will  not  attempt  to  analyze 
one  whom  he  does  not  think  he  can  cure.  There  is  no  doubt, 
however,  that  psychoanalysis  can  help  us  to  understand  prob- 
lems in  various  fields  of  vital  human  interest  that  were 
formerly  altogether  inscrutable  to  us.  Furthermore,  it 
enables  us  to  see  very  clearly  the  forces  that  tend  to  upset 
and  unbalance  the  individual,  and  thus  is  of  invaluable 
service  as  prophylaxis. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  FORGETTING 

The  main  basis  of  Freud's  psychology  is  that  there  is 
nothing  accidental  or  arbitrary  in  the  psychic  life,  that  every- 
thing has  reason  and  meaning.  It  matters  not  how  complex 
or  simple  the  condition  may  be,  it  has  significance,  and  this 
significance  may  be  discovered  through  analysis.  There  is 
thus  a  tremendous  number  of  mistakes  in  speech  and  thought 
manifestations  which  we  commonly  make,  that  getung- 
reveal,  in  a  surprising  way,  the  individual's  real  fe^ve 
thoughts  and  motives.  They  are,  as  we  say,  ^|^*" 
symbolic  expressions  or  psychopathological  actions,  incorrect 
psychic  activities  which  the  individual  daily  performs  and  of 
which  he  is  not  aware  at  the  time.  They  have  not  been 
hitherto  investigated,  I  mean  psychologically,  because  they 
were  regarded  as  essentially  organic  disturbances.  I  am  re- 
ferring to  such  faulty  actions  as  lapses  of  memory,  lapses  of 
talking,  mistakes  in  writing,  dreams  in  the  normal  individual, 
and  convulsions,  deliria,  visions,  and  obsessive  acts  in  neu- 
rotics and  psychotics.  The  psychologist  has  paid  little  atten- 
tion to  these  phenomena  because  they  presumably  belonged 
to  pathology,  and  the  physician,  to  whom  they  were  baffling 
and  recondite  to  the  last  degree,  passed  them  by,  as  if  they 
did  not  at  all  exist.  Freud  in  working  with  his  patients 
began  to  pay  attention  to  them  because  he  found,  as  I  have 
already  said,  that  they  all  had  a  certain  import  and  genetic 
basis.  He  thus  developed  in  time  what  we  may  call  a 
symbolic  language.     If  you  understand  this  language,  you 

47 


48  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

will  then  realize  how  it  manifests  itself  practically  all  the  time 
in  our  daily  lives.  Understand  this  symboHsm  and  how  full 
of  meaning  will  be  your  friend's  forgetting  to  do  or  say 
something!  Sometimes  a  patient  will  be  startled  by  what 
seems  to  him  nothing  short  of  psychic  powers  on  the  part 
of  the  psychoanalyst.  I  asked  a  woman  to-day  whether  she 
has  had  a  particular  dream  during  her  life,  and  she  replied : 
"Oh,  yes,  I  usually  dream  of  mountains  and  water  and 
waves  and  I  delight  in  them  greatly;  but  then,  I  have  the 
same  dreams  when  I  am  half  awake  and  I  despise  them." 
My  next  question  was :  "Tell  me,  up  to  what  age  did  you 
wet  the  bed?"  and  quite  embarrassed  she  answered:  "Until 
I  was  quite  old."  She  wondered  and  then  asked  me  how  I 
knew  it.  This  type  of  dream  is  quite  characteristic  of  people 
who  wet  the  bed;  and  there  was  really  nothing  remarkable 
in  my  arriving  at  the  conclusion.  Everything  that  a  person 
does,  the  way  he  dresses  or  walks,  his  bearing  and  demeanor, 
his  manner  of  talking,  all  have  a  definite  meaning.  I  do 
not  know  whether  you  are  aware  of  the  fact  that  we  are 
taught  in  medicine  to  observe  carefully  these  seemingly  trivial 
things.  Take  a  patient,  for  instance,  who  may  have  had 
some  brain  disturbance,  let  us  say  a  slight  hemorrhage,  but 
whose  history  is  so  vague  that  we  cannot  tell  whether  he  did 
or  not.  In  such  a  case  we  may  very  often  make  a  diagnosis 
by  examining  the  way  his  shoe  is  worn  out  and  thus  deter- 
mine definitely  whether  or  not  he  had  some  brain  disturbance. 
The  result  of  the  slightest  cerebral  hemorrhage  shows  its 
effects  in  the  gait;  the  patient  wears  off  a  little  of  the  right 
or  left  of  his  shoe,  and  that  is  enough  to  give  you  a  clue  to 
his  condition.  If  it  has  been  a  slight  attack,  it  will  evade 
the  observation  of  the  average  observer  but  the  experienced 
physician  can  detect  it  in  the  way  he  drags  one  of  his  limbs. 
We  must  have  a  sharp  eye  for  these  little  things  about  a 
person,  particularly  in  the  Insane  Asylum.    Very  few  insane 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  FORGETTING        49 

people  tell  us  what  we  want  them  to,  and  it  remains  for  the 
physician  to  make  the  diagnosis  at  once,  for  he  has  the 
patient's  relatives  forever  on  his  heels,  anxious  to  learn  of 
what  disease  the  patient  suffers  and  how  long  it  will  be 
before  he  gets  well  and  is  able  to  come  home.  Sometimes, 
too,  in  tlieir  great  eagerness  and  solicitude,  they  will  ask  you 
all  that,  before  you  have  even  had  the  opportunity  to  speak 
to  the  patient.  And  then,  a  great  many  of  the  insane  do  not 
talk  and  yet  the  doctor  must  make  the  diagnosis  and  give 
an  intelligent  answer.  "But,"  you  ask,  "how  can  a  diagnosis 
be  made,  if  the  patient  does  not  talk?"  But  that  is  just  the 
point :  to  an  experienced  physician  his  inability  to  speak  may 
be  due  to  some  physical  cause,  such  as  aphasia,  or  perhaps 
to  some  mental  retardation.  The  patient  may  move  his  lips, 
taking  perhaps  a  half  hour  in  his  efforts  to  answer;  you  can 
see  very  clearly  without  knowing  anything  about  lip  reading, 
that  he  is  trying  hard  to  talk  but  cannot ;  he  is  suffering  from 
mental  retardation.  Then,  too,  other  patients  actually  refuse 
to  talk,  in  which  case  of  course  the  diagnosis  must  necessarily 
be  different.  We  can  tell  at  once  that  the  patient  who  suffers 
of  this  mental  retardation  and  has  nothing  organically  wrong 
with  him  will  recover ;  we  can  discuss  his  case  with  the  same 
degree  of  definiteness  as  we  can  some  physical  condition.  If 
the  disturbance  is  organic,  the  prognosis  can  be  made  ac- 
cordingly. In  short,  we  must  learn  to  observe  and  under- 
stand the  patient. 

In  thus  inquiring  into  the  significance  of  psychopathologi- 
cal  actions.  Professor  Freud  made  a  study  of  forgetting. 
People  generally  regard  forgetting  as  a  common  occurrence 
and  I  hear  a  good  deal  about  it  from  patients,  who  very  often 
inform  me  that  they  are  very  nervous  and  that  they  are 
forgetting  all  the  time.  When  I  sometimes  ask  the  person 
to  give  me  an  example,  he  stops  and  thinks  for  a  long  time 
and  then  declares  that  last  week  he  had  to  do  such  and  such 


50  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

a  thing  at  such  and  such  a  place,  but  forgot.  Now  imagine 
a  person  who  is  forgetful,  remembering  what  happened  last 
week !  In  the  final  analysis  there  is  but  one  kind  of  forget- 
fulness,  organic  forgetfulness.  If  one  forgets  in  any  real 
sense  of  the  word  he  has  some  organic  brain  trouble  which 
can  be  diagnosed  by  a  physician  or  neurologist  in  about  ten 
minutes.  If  there  is  no  organic  condition,  his  so-called 
forgetting  may  be  ultimately  reduced  to  two  causes :  first, 
that  he  really  did  not  wish  to  remember  what  he  claims  he 
"forgot";  secondly,  that  he  either  never  knew  it  or  that  he 
never  considered  it  important  enough  to  know.  Eliminating 
the  second  factor,  we  find  when  we  ask  ourselves  why  we 
have  forgotten  to  do  something,  that  we  did  not  wish  to  do 
it,  that  there  was  something  in  that  particular  act  that  was 
unpleasant  or  disagreeable.  Think  for  a  moment  about  the 
letter  that  you  forgot  to  mail ;  it  is  probably  a  letter  some 
one  has  asked  you  to  mail  and  you  did  not  have  enough 
courage  to  refuse ;  or  it  may  perhaps  contain  a  check  with 
which,  though  perfectly  honest,  you  hated  to  part.  Shall 
I  assure  you  that  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  it  does  not  contain 
a  bill  ?  We  never  forget  anything  that  we  feel  is  important. 
I  dare  say,  you  will  not  carry  a  love  letter  in  your  pocket 
for  days  and  forget  to  mail  it.  Some  of  you,  I  am  sure,  will 
hasten  to  remind  me  that  when  you  were  in  college  you  knew 
one  hundred  trigonometrical  formulas  and  that  now,  strange 
to  say,  you  do  not  know  one.  But  did  you  ever  really  wish 
to  know  them?  You  had  to  know  them  and  just  as  soon  as 
the  examination  was  over  you  did  not  care  to  know  them 
any  longer.  There  is  an  important  point  here  for  pedagogs, 
it  seems  to  me.  What  we  really  like  we  do  not  have  to 
memorize.  If  you  desire  a  child  to  remember  some  subject 
matter  make  it  so  vitally  interesting  that  he  will  be  very  glad 
and  anxious  to  remember  it.  It  is  a  platitude  to  say  that 
anatomy  is  a  dry  subject  and  yet  I  once  had  an  instructor  who 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  FORGETTING       51 

taught  it  in  such  an  absorbing,  fascinating  way  that  students 
came  to  his  courses  quite  voluntarily.  When  one  likes  and 
enjoys  the  subject  he  teaches,  he  can  transfer  his  interest 
in  it  to  others.  In  psychic  studies,  the  axiom  is:  like 
emotions  beget  like  emotions.  When  you  "forget"  anything, 
then,  it  is  either  because  you  have  never  known  it,  and  so 
there  is  really  no  reason  why  you  should  know  it ;  or,  if  you 
had  known  it  well  and  now  find  that  you  cannot  recall  it, 
because  it  is  essentially  connected,  directly  or  indirectly,  with 
something  disagreeable  and  painful.  The  mind  is  always 
protecting  us  from  pain  by  pushing  whatever  is  disagreeable 
and  unpleasant  into  the  unconscious. 

Psychoanalysis  reveals  that  the  various  psychopathological 
actions  are  readily  explainable  on  a  psychological  basis. 
Whatever  we  say  or  do  must  have  a  reason  and  can  usually 
be  explained  without  resorting  to  such  superficial  considera- 
tions as  "absent-mindedness"  or  the  like.  The  Scottish 
professor,  who,  on  a  momentous  occasion,  removed  his 
every-day  clothes  and  instead  of  dressing  for  dinner  went 
to  bed,  cannot  be  excused  on  the  ground  of  "absent-minded- 
ness." We  must  assume  that  he  really  preferred  to  go  to 
bed  than  to  the  dinner,  for  any  one  who  looks  forward  to  a 
dinner  of  some  importance  will  not  forget  and  go  to  bed.  It 
is  such  "little"  things  that  disclose  the  individual's  real  motives 
and  give  us  the  key  to  the  more  complicated  mental  activities. 
There  is  a  physical  reason  for  a  person  who  has  an  organic 
brain  disturbance  to  forget  what  he  has  once  well  known, 
but  if  he  shows  no  such  disturbance  there  can  be  no  other 
than  a  psychological  reason  ,for  his  lapse  of  memory. 

When  I  was  an  interne  in  the  Clinic  of  Psychiatry  at 
Zurich,  I  had  an  interesting  experience  in  forgetting  a  name 
which  I  may  say  finally  converted  m.e  to  Freud's  teachings. 
At  that  time,  I  was  not  fully  convinced  of  his  theories,  and 


52  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

my  attitude  was  skeptical  though  by  no  means  unsympathetic. 
I  approached  the  whole  subject  in  the  spirit  of  an  investigator 
^  and  student  who  made  every  effort  to  discover 

^picai  and  understand  all  the  data  before  passing  final 
of  judgment  on  his  psychology.     Spurred  on  by 

getting  Professor  Bleuler,  all  the  physicians  in  the  hos- 
pital were  firm  and  ardent  workers  with  the  new  theories. 
In  fact,  we  were  in  the  only  hospital  or  clinic  where  the 
Freudian  principles  were  applied  in  the  study  and  treatment 
of  patients.  Those  were  the  pioneer  days  of  Freud  among 
psychiatrists,  and  we  observed  and  studied  and  noted  what- 
ever was  done  or  said  about  us  with  unfailing  patience  and 
untiring  interest  and  zeal.  We  made  no  scruples,  for 
instance,  of  asking  a  man  at  table  why  he  did  not  use  his 
spoon  in  the  proper  way,  or  why  he  did  such  and  such  a  thing 
in  such  and  such  a  manner.  It  was  impossible  for  one  to 
show  any  degree  of  hesitation  or  make  some  abrupt  pause 
in  speaking  without  being  at  once  called  to  account.  We  had 
to  keep  ourselves  well  in  hand,  ever  ready  and  alert,  for  there 
was  no  telling  when  and  where  there  would  be  a  new  attack. 
We  had  to  explain  why  we  whistled  or  hummed  some  par- 
ticular tune  or  why  we  made  some  slip  in  talking  or  some 
mistake  in  writing.  But  we  were  glad  to  do  this  if  for  no 
other  reason  than  to  learn  to  face  the  truth. 

One  afternoon  when  I  was  off  duty  I  was  reading  about 
a  certain  case  which  recalled  to  my  mind  a  similar  one  I  had 
when  I  was  in  a  hospital  here  in  New  York.  I  am  in  the  habit 
of  making  marginal  notes  and  so  I  took  up  my  pencil  to  write 
down  the  case,  but  when  I  came  to  note  the  name  of  the 
patient  whom  I  had  known  for  a  number  of  months  and  in 
whom  I  had  taken  an  unusual  amount  of  interest,  I  found 
that  I  could  not  recall  it.  I  tried  very  hard  to  bring  it  back 
to  my  mind,  but  without  success.  It  was  strange  and 
puzzling;  but  as  I  knew  definitely  whom  I  meant  I  finished 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  FORGETTING        53 

the  note.  Now  according  to  Freud,  I  thought  at  once  to 
myself,  the  name  must  be  connected  with  something  painful 
and  unpleasant.  I  decided  right  there  and  then  to  find  it  by 
the  Freudian  method.  As  I  have  already  told  you,  it  con- 
sists essentially  of  freely  or  spontaneously  associating  until 
finally  the  disagreeable  element  is  brought  to  the  surface.  It 
was  my  Sunday  afternoon  off  and  I  had  been  looking  for- 
ward to  it  with  no  little  eagerness.  The  weather  was  clear 
and  bracing  and  I  was  very  anxious  to  be  out  in  the  open ; 
besides  I  had  an  appointment  in  the  town  which  I  did  not 
like  to  break.  But  I  was  so  eager  to  utilize  every  oppor- 
tunity to  test  the  Freudian  theory,  that  I  at  once  took  down 
one  of  those  long  yellow  pads  we  used  to  use  and  began  to 
write  down  my  associations. 

Now  the  patient  whose  name  I  could  not  recall  was  the 
same  man  who  some  years  ago  attempted  to  set  fire  to  the 
St.  Patrick's  Cathedral  in  New  York;  he  gathered  together 
some  odds  and  ends  before  the  entrance  of  the  church  and 
set  fire  to  it.  He  was  of  course  arrested,  brought  to  the 
psychopathic  pavilion  in  Bellevue  and  later  to  the  State 
Hospital  where  he  became  my  patient.  I  diagnosed  him  as 
a  psychic  epileptic.  I  decided  that  he  suffered  from  a  form 
of  epilepsy  which  does  not  manifest  itself  in  fits,  as  the 
general  cases  do,  but  rather  in  peculiar  psychic  actions  which 
may  last  for  a  few  minutes  or  hours  or  perhaps  for  weeks, 
months  or  years.  Nobody  agreed  with  me  in  the  diagnosis ; 
my  senior  doctor  held  that  the  patient  suffered  from  de- 
mentia praecox,  I  was  firmly  convinced,  however,  that  my 
patient  was  what  I  designated  him,  for  there  are  a  great  many 
epileptics  who,  instead  of  having  the  physical  paroxysms 
which  are  usually  associated  with  epilepsy,  have  what  we 
call  psychic  equivalents,  by  virtue  of  which  they  go  through 
all  manner  of  complicated  psychic  experiences.  They  become 
dazed  and  unconscious  and  lose  track  of  their  old  self ;  they 


54  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

are  then  virtually  different  personalities  and  they  may  com- 
mit all  sorts  of  crimes  in  their  new  person.  I  have  actually 
known  of  murders  committed  and  houses  burned  by  people 
of  this  type.  One  man  was  reported  to  have  killed  his 
entire  family,  father,  mother  and  six  brothers  in  a  fit  of 
this  kind;  and  when  he  came  to  himself  again  he  was  not 
at  all  aware  of  the  horrors  that  he  had  perpetrated. 

Within  a  week  or  so  the  patient  recovered  and  was  entirely 
normal,  thus  corroborating  my  diagnosis  in  every  respect. 
The  patient  told  us  that  this  was  his  fifth  attack  and  that 
in  some  of  his  previous  ones  he  had  burned  a  railroad  station, 
a  church  and  several  barns.  He  would  run  away  from 
home,  his  wife  and  children,  and  wander  off,  scot-free,  when 
one  of  these  fits  came  upon  him.  He  was  an  editor  of  a 
journal  and  newspaper  in  Canada,  a  man  of  considerable 
intelligence  and  refinement.  On  one  of  his  attacks  during 
the  Boer  war,  he  ran  away  from  Canada  and  came  to  Lon- 
don, where,  seeing  calls  for  volunteers,  he  enlisted  and  was 
sent  to  South  Africa.  He  fought  bravely  and  was  promoted 
to  sergeant  in  a  few  weeks.  When  he  came  to  himself,  he 
was  quite  surprised  to  find  himself  a  soldier  and  did  not 
have  the  least  idea  how  he  got  to  South  Africa.  Previous 
experience  told  him,  however,  what  his  condition  meant  and 
upon  reporting  it  to  the  physicians,  he  was  honorably  dis- 
charged. He  sent  a  cable  to  his  wife  and  returned  home. 
He  gave  us  various  details  about  himself,  tlie  hospital  where 
he  found  himself  last,  his  former  doctor,  all  of  which  we 
were  soon  able  to  corroborate.  He  had  what  we  called  a 
"fugue"  or  "poriomania."  Cases  like  this  have  been  reported 
where  the  person  disappeared  for  as  many  as  three  years. 
Indeed,  they  are  not  as  rare  as  you  may  suppose. 

Everybody  congratulated  me  on  my  diagnosis,  and  I 
myself  was  greatly  elated.  The  superintendent  assured  me 
that  I  had  all  good  reason  to  be  proud  of  myself  and  he  went 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  FORGETTING       ss 

on  to  state,  to  my  profound  disappointment  and  displeasure, 
that  he  would  report  the  case  to  a  medical  society.  I  had 
spent  a  tremendous  amount  of  time  and  effort  on  it  and 
desired  to  publish  it  as  my  first  contribution  to  medical  litera- 
ture. But  he  was  the  superintendent  of  the  hospital,  I  was 
merely  a  practicing  doctor;  and  so  there  was  nothing  else 
to  do  but  face  the  situation  with  a  stout  heart.  "Very  well, 
sir,"  I  said,  but  I  felt  quite  differently,  of  course.  When 
I  told  my  colleagues  about  it  they  thought  it  was  a  huge 
Joke ;  some  of  them  even  ventured  to  assure  me  that  I  had 
all  good  reason  to  be  happy,  for  was  I  not  saved  the  trouble 
of  reading  the  paper  before  the  medical  society?  A  few 
days  before  the  meeting,  the  superintendent  asked  me  to 
bring  him  my  prepared  paper,  but  when  I  read  it  to  him,  he 
found  himself  face  to  face  with  an  embarrassing  situation. 
He  asked  me  where  I  had  gotten  my  numerous  references, 
for  I  quoted  from  Italian,  German  and  French  sources,  and 
when  I  went  on  to  say  that  they  were  from  the  original  and 
not  mere  translations,  he  felt  reticent  and  faint  about  read- 
ing the  paper  as  his  own,  for  he  could  neither  read  nor 
translate  these  languages.  "Now,  I'll  tell  you.  Brill,  you 
had  better  go  there  and  read  it  yourself,"  he  said.  I  was 
very  much  pleased  at  this  and  felt  quite  relieved.  But  I 
soon  learned  that  the  programs  were  already  printed  and 
that  the  superintendent  was  down  for  reading  the  case.  I 
went  before  the  society  and  everybody  thought  it  was  the 
superintendent's  paper  and  that  he  sent  me  merely  to  read  it 
for  him.  You  may  realize  how  deeply  I  felt  about  the  whole 
affair.  Finally,  to  cap  the  climax,  after  I  had  read  the  paper, 
an  editor  of  an  obscure  Medical  Journal  asked  me  for  it  for 
publication  in  his  journal.  I  refused  and  told  him  that  I 
would  have  it  sent  to  a  journal  of  neurology  or  psychiatry. 
But  he  lost  no  time  to  speak  to  the  superintendent  about  it, 
with  whom  he  had  considerable  influence,  and  I  was  soon 


56  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

compelled  to  give  him  the  paper  with  as  much  grace  as  I 
could  then  command.  Now  I  am  dwelling  quite  at  length 
on  the  phase  of  the  situation  because  I  would  like  you  to 
note  carefully  that  there  was  enough  of  the  disagreeable  and 
unpleasant  associated  with  the  whole  experience  to  account 
for  my  forgetting  the  name  of  the  patient. 

For  hours  at  end  I  sat  there  writing  down  the  associations, 
but  I  was  not  a  whit  nearer  to  knowing  the  name  than  when 
I  began.  Various  details  and  incidents  came  swarming  into 
my  mind  and  I  had  to  write  mighty  rapidly  to  keep  pace 
with  them.  I  could  see  clearly  how  this  New  York  patient 
looked,  the  color  of  his  hair,  the  peculiar  expression  on  his 
face.  I  became  discouraged  and  thought  to  myself,  "if  that 
is  the  way  to  find  a  thing  through  the  Freudian  method,  1 
shall  never  be  a  Freudian."  It  was  now  evening  and  one 
of  my  colleagues,  surprised  to  find  me  indoors,  asked  me 
to  make  his  rounds  for  him  inasmuch  as  I  was  not  going 
out.  I  consented  gladly,  for  I  was  tired  of  these  Freudian 
labors.  But  when  I  was  done,  I  felt  refreshed  and  returned 
to  the  associations  with  renewed  interest.  At  eleven  o'clock 
I  was  still  in  as  much  darkness  about  the  name  as  before.  I 
went  to  bed  disheartened  and  thoroughly  disgusted  with  the 
whole  affair.  At  about  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  I  awoke 
and  made  a  supreme  effort  to  dismiss  it  from  my  mind,  but 
in  vain.  Nolens  volens,  I  soon  began  to  associate  in  bed, 
and  finally,  at  about  a  little  after  five,  the  long-sought  name 
suddenly  came  to  me.  My  joy  and  elation  was  not  at  all 
free  from  a  sense  of  relief;  it  was  as  if  I  had  solved  a  long 
vexing  problem.  I  have  no  doubt  now  that  had  I  not  been 
able  to  find  it,  I  probably  would  never  have  continued  to 
take  the  slightest  interest  in  Freud.  I  spent  so  much  time 
and  effort  in  trying  to  ferret  it  out  that  I  felt  quite  out  of 
humor  with  myself;  but  I  was  well  compensated  no  less 
by  the  sense  of  pleasure  and  satisfaction  that  went  with 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  FORGETTING       57 

the  discovery,  than  by  the  fresh  conviction  it  gave  me  in 
Freudian  psychology. 

Now  what  was  the  situation?  Let  me  say  first  that  when 
you  begin  to  associate  freely,  you  will  soon  be  surprised  to 
find  that  thousand  of  associations  begin  pouring  in  upon 
consciousness.  Sometimes,  three  or  four  of  these  associa- 
tions come  at  the  same  moment  and  you  pause  and  wonder 
which  one  to  write  down  first.  You  soon  make  some  selec- 
tion and  continue.  In  my  own  case,  I  observed  that  a  few 
very  definite  associations  kept  on  recurring  continually. 
Every  time  I  asked  myself  the  name  of  this  New  York 
patient,  there  would  invariably  come  to  my  mind  the  case  of 
a  real  epileptic  I  then  had  in  the  Zurich  hospital.  His  name 
was  Appenzeller,  he  was  just  a  Swiss  peasant,  and  I  ex- 
plained the  association  on  the  ground  that  they  were  both 
epileptics,  the  New  York  patient,  as  you  remember,  being  a 
psychic  epileptic.  Another  continually  recurring  association 
was  this:  When  I  thought  of  the  hospital  in  Long  Island 
and  all  that  happened  there  during  the  five  years  I  was  con- 
nected with  it,  one  particular  scene  would  stand  out  very 
clearly  and  prominently ;  my  mind  would  revert  to  it  all  the 
time.  There  were  very  often  forest  fires  near  the  hospital 
and  on  many  occasions  we  had  to  go  out  and  check  them  lest 
they  reached  our  buildings.  This  particular  scene  was  on 
a  Friday;  there  was  a  big  fire  raging  near  the  hospital  and 
we  had  to  send  out  as  many  doctors  and  nurses  as  we  could 
possibly  spare  to  help  control  it.  I  was  there  to  see  that 
there  was  no  confusion,  that  things  were  carried  out  prop- 
erly; I  was  chatting  with  a  physician  who  was  with  me  in 
the  same  capacity.  The  fire  was  consuming  a  good  deal  of 
scrub  pine;  and  now  and  then  an  attendant  would  succeed 
in  shooting  one  of  the  rabbits  that  were  fleeing  from  the 
brush  wood.  As  I  was  standing  there,  the  superintendent 
came  up  to  us,  passed  some  remark  or  other^  and  then  spying 


58  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

a  rabbit  some  distance  away,  asked  one  of  the  attendants 
for  his  shot-gun  to  try  his  skill,  saying:  "Let's  see  if  I  can 
get  that  rabbit."  We  all  looked  on  knowingly,  for  we  never 
had  very  much  faith  in  the  superintendent's  marksmanship, 
and  no  mistake,  he  missed  his  aim  and  the  rabbit  escaped. 
He  turned  to  me  and  declared  somewhat  uneasily,  and  by 
way  of  explanation,  that  his  fingers  slipped,  for  it  was  be- 
ginning to  rain.  I  seemingly  concurred  in  the  observation, 
but  in  my  heart  I  smiled  at  his  discomfiture.  I  could  see  him 
very  plainly  as  he  stood  there,  saying,  "Let's  see  if  I  can  get 
that  rabbit,"  and  he  would  then  aim,  shoot  and  miss  it. 
Finally  I  saw  the  scene  again  in  the  morning,  and  with  the 
words,  "Let's  see  if  I  can  get  that  rabbit,"  the  name  came 
to  me.  It  was  Lapin,  the  French  word  for  rabbit.  Later 
on  when  I  actually  counted  my  associations  I  found  that 
this  particular  association  came  up  twenty-eight  times  more 
than  any  of  the  others. 

This  may  seem  strange  to  you,  but  that  is  exactly  the  way 
the  mind  works  unconsciously.  The  name  was  symbolically 
represented  by  the  scene;  the  whole  situation  was  under  re- 
pression and  that  is  the  manner  in  which  the  unconscious 
elaborated  it.  The  repressed  emotion  attached  itself  to  an 
actual  occurrence:  the  superintendent  fails  to  shoot  the 
rabbit;  i.e.,  he  fails  to  deprive  me  of  the  case.  At  the  time 
of  this  incident  I  came  from  Paris  and  I  tried  not  merely 
to  talk  French,  but  to  think  in  French;  and  though  I  was 
in  Switzerland  where  they  speak  Swiss-German,  there  were 
a  great  many  people  in  my  service  from  the  French  part  of 
the  country  who  spoke  French.  And  so  it  was  quite  natural 
for  the  name  to  have  thus  presented  itself  in  French  guise. 
You  can  easily  see  also  why  I  thought  of  Appenzeller. 
There  was  the  sound  association  of  the  first  part  of  Appen- 
zeller, Appen,  Lapin;  and  what  is  just  as  important,  both 
patients  were  epileptics.    You  may  thus  see,  first,  that  there 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  FORGETTING       59 

was  something  distinctly  disagreeable  and  painful  associated 
with  the  name,  and  secondly,  that  there  was  a  definite  sym- 
bolic expression  of  it  in  the  form  of  a  repressed  emotion. 

That  the  image  of  the  superintendent's  shooting  at  the 
rabbit  should  thus  symbolically  express  the  whole  situation 
will  not  sound  so  strange  to  you  when  you  under- 
stand what  we  mean  by  symbols.    We  may  define      and 
a  symbol  as  an  imperfect  comparison  between      con- 
two  objects  which  in  reality  may  have  very  little      ^  °^ 
resemblance;  it  is  nothing  but  a  form  of  comparison.     If 
you  observe  children  as  they  grow  up  and  learn  to  talk,  you 
will  find  that  they  are  always  thinking  in  pictures  or  symbols. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  they  do  not  think  iri  the  sense 
that  we  generally  suppose,  that  is,  in  the  sense  of  reasoning, 
but  that  they  merely  associate  and  compare.    Numerous  ex- 
amples may  be  cited  to  substantiate  this. 

A  little  girl  once  pointed  to  her  knee  which  was  bruised 
by  a  fall  and  exclaimed  to  her  father :  "Papa,  here  is  a 
'babble.' "  He  was  at  first  hard  put  to  understand  how  she 
could  think  of  calling  the  wound  on  her  knee  a  "babble" 
because  he  knew  that  she  called  an  apple  a  "babble."  But 
upon  a  little  reflection,  he  soon  saw  what  she  meant.  The 
little  girl  was  fourteen  months  old  when  she  first  began  to 
see  apples  in  an  orchard  in  the  country;  she  would  try  to 
pick  up  those  that  had  fallen  from  the  trees  and  would  call 
them  "babbles."  Now  you  have  all  observed  that  an  apple 
in  falling  from  a  tree  receives  what  appears  to  be  a  wound, 
a  sort  of  round  dark  yellowish  mark.  To  the  little  child  the 
contusion  on  her  knee  looked  exactly  like  this  mark,  and 
so,  by  association,  she  called  that,  too,  a  "babble,"  but  there 
was  really  no  more  real  resemblance  between  the  two  than 
between  Lapin,  the  name  of  the  patient,  ana  a  real  rabbit. 
We  see  this  same  phenomenon  among  grown-ups ;  when  one 


6o  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

invents  a  new  piece  of  machinery  he  always  names  it  in 
terms  of  what  he  knows,  or  he  may  select  its  most  important 
attribute  or  attributes  and  name  it  accordingly.  Automobile 
means  self-moving,  "auto"  and  "mobile,"  but  not  everything 
that  moves  by  itself  is  an  automobile,  so  that  the  name  of 
and  by  itself  will  tell  very  little  indeed  to  a  person  who  has 
never  seen  this  horseless  machine.  This  applies  also  to  such 
names  as  hydroplane,  aeroplane,  and  the  like.  The  new 
invention  was  defined  in  terms  of  our  previous  experience. 

I  recall  now  a  little  boy  whom  I  knew  very  well ;  he  was 
only  two  and  a  half  years  old  and  he  would  come  to  my  room 
and  I  would  give  him  a  pad  of  paper  and  a  pencil  to  play 
with.  One  day  he  drew  what  appeared  to  be  a  little  circle 
and  came  up  to  me  and  said,  "Here's  an  autobile,"  He  did 
in  fact  the  very  thing  that  the  inventor  or  any  intelligent 
grown-up  person  does;  to  him  the  wheel  was  the  predomi- 
nant and  characteristic  element  in  the  automobile.  Thus  we 
see  here  a  form  of  comparison,  which  is,  in  the  final  analysis, 
the  sum  and  substance  of  all  our  thinking.  When  you  de- 
clare, for  instance,  that  you  will  think  over  some  problem, 
you  know  very  well  from  experience  that  if  you  wait  a 
little  while,  you  will  be  able  to  reach  some  sort  of  solution. 
In  the  final  analysis,  we  are  empiricists.  Meanwhile  it  con- 
tinues to  revolve  in  your  mind;  the  particular  situation  is 
juxtaposed  to  similar  situations,  the  particular  condition  is 
contrasted  with  similar  conditions.  Finally  you  decide  the 
problem ;  it  is  really  decided  for  you.  Of  course,  the  nature 
of  the  decision  depends  entirely  upon  the  type  and  char- 
acter of  the  individual.  As  a  physician,  if  I  defer  stating 
a  diagnosis  of  which  I  am  not  sure,  I  am  merely  taking  a 
little  more  time  to  compare  the  particular  patient  in  question 
with  many  others  whom,  it  seems  to  me,  he  resembles. 
Finally  I  reach  a  conclusion;  the  case  is  either  of  this  type 
or  is  allied  to  it,  because  it  is  absolutely  characteristic  of  it. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  FORGETTING       61 

So,  too,  a  tried  and  astute  general  can  decide  and  act  quickly, 
for  his  accumulated  past  experience  affords  him  immediate 
basis  for  quick  and  sound  judgment. 

When  my  little  boy  was  about  three  years  old  he  was 
playing  one  day  with  a  box  of  geometrical  figures  as  used 
in  a  Montessori  school.  As  you  may  know,  these  figures 
are  all  of  jet  black  pasted  on  a  white  background.  Pointing 
to  one,  he  said,  "What  is  this,  Daddy?"  I  told  him  it  was 
a  triangle,  to  which  he  replied,  "Then  Fll  sing  a  triangle," 
and  he  motioned  with  his  arms  in  accompaniment.  He  then 
put  it  aside  and  inquired  about  another  figure  and  when  I 
told  him  it  was  a  square,  he  said,  "Then  I'll  sing  a  square." 
"And  what's  this.  Daddy  ?"  "An  octagon ;"  and  so  he  con- 
tinued repeating  in  each  case  that  he  would  play  that  par- 
ticular figure.  I  was  wondering  how  he  came  to  this  strange 
idea  when  I  noticed  that  among  the  figures  he  took  out  of 
the  box  was  the  circle;  in  fact,  judging  by  its  position  it 
must  have  been  the  first  figure  to  be  removed  from  the  box. 
Now  the  jet  black  circle  on  the  white  background  showed  a 
close  resemblance  to  phonograph  records  of  which  he  was 
very  fond,  indeed  so  fond  that  he  would  even  cry  for  them 
on  many  occasions.  When  he  looked  at  the  figure  of  the 
circle  he  undoubtedly  took  it  for  a  phonograph  record  and 
after  going  through  the  movements  of  playing  it,  he  took  the 
next  figure  from  the  box.  This,  being  the  triangle,  looked 
strange  to  him  and  caused  him  to  ask  what  it  was,  but  it  did 
not  interfere  with  the  association  already  established  in  his 
mind.  In  his  infantile  mind  he  saw  a  resemblance  between 
two  things  and  straightway  he  transferred  the  significant 
attribute  of  the  one  to  the  other.  He  at  once  realized  what 
seemed  to  him  the  essential  similitude  in  a  concrete  case;  he 
carried  it,  so  to  say,  to  its  logical  conclusion.  We  may  see 
the  same  mode  of  association  in  modern  art;  the  artist  may 
say  he  has  painted  a  nude  lady  walking  down  the  stairs  but 


62  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

what  we  may  really  perceive  is  but  a  conglomeration  of 
geometrical  figures.  We  have  here  an  infantile  expression 
on  the  part  of  the  artist.  The  same  process  of  thought  can 
be  observed  in  some  modern  music.  I  know  a  man  to  whom 
every  song  is  a  color,  and  every  color  a  song;  like  my  little 
boy  who  sang  a  triangle  he  is  thinking  in  pictures  or  symbols. 
We  see  this  same  form  of  expression  also  in  the  dream. 

Here  is  another  little  incident  relating  to  my  little  boy 
that  I  feel  is  characteristic  of  the  mode  in  which  children 
associate  ideas.  When  he  was  about  three  years  old,  he  was 
attending  a  Montessori  School ;  he  was  accustomed  to  be 
taken  there  in  the  morning  either  by  the  maid  or  by  my 
wife.  One  day  it  stormed  so  very  hard,  that  we  could  not 
get  a  taxi  or  take  him  to  school  under  an  umbrella.  My  wife 
was  worried  and  wondered  what  to  do,  and  I  told  her  that 
I  would  carry  him  to  school  myself.  I  had  him  put  his  head 
on  my  shoulder  and  quickly  we  made  our  way  in  the  heavy 
storm  to  the  school  building,  which,  by  the  way,  was  only 
a  few  blocks  away  from  our  home.  He  seemed  to  enjoy  the 
experience  immensely.  About  six  months  or  so  later  it  so 
happened  that  I  had  a  little  time  and  I  said:  "Shall  I  take 
you  to  school?"  At  once  he  answered:  "Is  it  raining. 
Daddy  ?"  I  did  not  know  at  first  what  he  meant  but  I  soon 
saw  its  significance.  In  other  words,  to  him  at  that  time, 
the  act  of  my  taking  him  to  school  became  associated  with 
rain.  Behaviorists  have  pointed  out  that  animals  think  in 
the  same  way ;  it  is  indeed  stupid  to  maintain  that  they  do 
not  reason ;  they  merely  have  not  as  much  brains  as  the 
human  being,  therefore,  not  as  many  associations.  The  same 
holds  true  in  defectives,  they  have  not  as  much  wealth  of 
associations  at  their  disposal  as  the  average  individual.  When 
we  shall  take  up  the  association  experiment  I  shall  try  to 
show  you  how  we  can  determine  by  noting  their  associations, 
the  mental  deficiency  even  of  those  who  are  only  slightly 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  FORGETTING       63 

defective,  such  as  in  morons,  when  the  ordinary  tests  of  the 
Binet-Simon  type  will  not  show  anything. 

Observe  children  who  have  not  yet  realized  the  nature  of 
abstract  ideas  and  you  will  find  that  they  invariably  express 
themselves  concretely,  by  means  of  comparison.  A  little 
girl  of  three  years  old  was  once  taken  to  the  aquarium  and 
she  saw  among  other  things,  a  seal,  with  whose  character- 
istic alacrity  of  moveraent  she  v/as  greatly  impressed.  A 
few  days  later  she  talked  enthusiastically  about  all  that  she 
had  seen  there,  and  said  among  other  things,  that  she  saw 
a  thing  that  went  this  way,  and  here  she  motioned  with  her 
hands  the  quick  movements  of  the  seal.  She  had  forgotten 
its  name  but  she  remembered  its  important  attribute.  You 
have  observed  children  very  often  say  "by-bye,"  when  they 
finish  drinking  their  milk ;  it  is  the  first  word  that  they 
usually  learn.  The  idea  is  suggested  to  them  by  the  analogy 
to  departure.  One  can  always  find  a  definite  reason  for  the 
apparent  incongruous  expressions  evinced  by  children.  It 
is  simply  a  question  of  tracing  their  mode  of  association  or 
comparison  between  things.  The  same  mechanisms  are  con- 
stantly seen  in  the  bizarre  behaviors  of  the  insane. 

There  was  a  patient  in  the  Psychiatric  clinic  at  Zurich  who 
would  place  folded  rose  petals  against  her  forehead  and  hit 
them,  thus  producing  a  crackling  sound.  Nobody  could 
fathom  the  meaning  of  this  action  until  Professor  Bleuler 
began  to  study  her  case  thoroughly  and  found  that  she  be- 
came insane  upon  her  lover's  committing  suicide  by  shooting 
himself  in  the  head.  Thus  her  behavior  in  this  particular 
instance  was  a  symbolic  representation  of  the  shooting;  she 
was  reliving  an  old  episode. 

The  infantile  form  of  thinking  through  simple  comparison 
becomes  less  apparent  as  age  advances.  The  child  gradually 
enriches  his  vocabulary  to  enable  him  to  express  words  in 
the  constant  acquisition  of  new  knowledge.    He  is  compelled 


64  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

to  accept  new  terms  for  abstract  ideas  without  resorting  to 
conscious  elaboration  as  he  was  wont  to  do  in  childhood. 
In  his  unconscious,  however,  the  same  process  of  imperfect 
comparisons  prevail.  That  is  why  later  in  life  such  imperfect 
comparisons  or  symbols  strike  us  as  strange  and  foolish. 
When  a  grown-up  hears  her  mother  reminisce  that  as  a  little 
girl  she  said  "la"  when  she  meant  "color,"  she  not  only  ex- 
periences a  feeling  of  strangeness  but  is  also  somewhat 
abashed  at  her  former  childishness,  but  the  situation  becomes 
clear  when  she  consults  her  father's  diary.  She  then  finds 
that  when  she  was  ten  months  old  her  father  gave  her  a  pad 
of  paper  with  a  pencil  and  encouraged  her  to  scribble  by 
drawing  for  her  crude  pictures  of  the  house  dog  King.  She 
soon  learned  her  lesson  and  whenever  she  saw  her  father 
with  the  pad  she  would  point  to  it  and  say  "la"  which  meant 
"draw."  La  was  one  of  the  few  syllables  she  could  utter 
at  that  age.  Later  when  she  could  call  Kmg  "Thim,"  she 
would  often  say  to  her  father  "La  Thim,"  which  meant 
"draw  a  picture  of  King."  Still  later  "La"  not  only  meant 
to  write  or  draw  but  also  became  identified  with  color,  un- 
doubtedly because  some  of  the  pencils  she  used  were  colored, 
so  that  when  a  multicolored  ball  was  given  her  for  the  first 
time,  she  immediately  designated  it  as  "La  ball,"  in  contrast 
to  the  plain  white  ball  with  which  she  played  for  some  time. 
Such  symbols  constantly  recur  in  dreams  and  in  other  pro- 
ductions of  unconscious  mentation,  but  as  we  are  usually 
ignorant  of  their  origin  they  strike  us  as  mysterious  and 
foreign. 

So  words  uttered  or  written  are  nothing  but  symbols  of 
actual  activities.  The  alphabet  originally  consisted  of 
symbols ;  the  addition  of  vowels  and  consonants  was  a  much 
later  development.  In  the  Hebrew  alphabet,  for  instance, 
which  is  a  direct  descendant  of  the  Phoenician  or  first  known 
alphabet,  the  alef  represents  graphically  an  ox  and  the  beth 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  FORGETTING       65 

a  house.  So,  too,  the  Chinese  ideographs  and  the  hiero- 
glyphics of  the  ancient  Egyptians  are  also  symbolic  repre- 
sentations of  definite  objects. 

We  find  also  certain  characteristic  symbols  among  all 
nations.  We,  for  instance,  have  the  eagle  as  an  emblem ; 
the  Romans,  as  you  know,  had  the  wolf ;  the  English  the 
lion,  etc.  It  is  also  interesting  to  note  that  the  guilds  the 
world  over  had  special  symbols  for  the  various  trades,  some 
of  which  still  survive,  the  barber's  pole  and  the  pawn  broker's 
sign,  for  instance.  It  is  interesting  to  note  also  that  the 
barber's  pole  was  originally  white  spotted  with  red  that 
signified  blood,  for  in  the  old  days  the  barber  was  a  sort  of 
half-doctor,  performing  such  operations  as  blood  letting  and 
cupping,  for  instance ;  and  indeed,  he  is  still  regarded  as  such 
in  Russia  and  some  other  European  countries.  I  am  sure 
you  are  all  also  aware  of  the  symbolic  significance  of  colors ; 
green,  as  you  all  know,  signifies  hope,  red  love,  yellow  jeal- 
ousy or  cowardice.  In  the  same  way,  too,  there  is  not  a  word 
but  that  has  a  definite  symbol,  and  it  is  instructive  to  note 
how  the  original  symbol  is  in  time  distorted.  Examples  of 
this  are  legion.  You  may  all  know,  I  am  sure,  that  the  word 
person  is  derived  from  the  Latin  per  sonna  which  means 
through  a  mask;  originally  an  actor  performing  before  a 
large  audience  used  a  megaphone  to  make  his  voice  carry, 
but  as  it  was  somewhat  ludicrous  and  unaesthetic  to  have 
him  strut  about  the  stage  with  a  megaphone,  it  was  found 
best  to  conceal  it  under  a  mask.  Likewise,  imbecile  at 
present  denotes  a  person  who  is  mentally  weak.  Originally 
it  signified  merely  physical  debility  or  more  particularly,  a 
person  walking  on  a  cane. 

Now  there  are  certain  symbols  that  are  ethnic;  they  re- 
semble certain  things  to  such  an  extent  that  you  find  them 
wherever  there  is  an  unconscious  mentation.  Mythology 
and  primitive  religions  particularly  abound  with  them,  for  in 


66  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

this  sphere  of  mental  activity  we  find  the  human  being  in 
yet  an  infantile  condition ;  the  difference  between  reality  and 
fiction  is  not  yet  clearly  marked.  We  note  here.,  as  in  the 
dream,  the  preponderance  of  sex  symbols.  Indeed  when  one 
delves  into  the  mainsprings  of  primitive  religion,  one  finds 
that  it  is  centered  entirely  around  sex;  it  may  be  said  that 
all  our  religions  are  intrinsically  precipitates  or  extracts  from 
the  original  Phallic  worship.^  In  every  Hindu  temple  even 
to-day,  for  instance,  the  altar  is  made  up  of  the  "yoni 
lingam"  which  is  only  a  union  of  the  male  and  female 
genitals  on  a  pedestal  surrounded  by  a  snake  which  euphem- 
istically is  a  symbol  of  eternity.  Those  students  who  have 
delved  deeply  into  the  subject  have  pointed  out,  however, 
that  the  snake  is  really  a  symbol  of  the  male  genitals. 
Primitive  man  before  he  knew  enough  about  the  principles 
of  biology  could  only  think  of  one  thing,  that  the  genitals, 
because  they  produce  life,  were  symbols  of  life;  and  that  is 
why  they  were  carried  in  procession  and  worshiped.  And 
what  is  unusually  interesting  is  that  you  find  this  same 
symbolic  expression  even  to-day.  When  we  examine  the 
language  that  we  find  in  dreams,  deliria,  hallucinations,  and 
delusions,  we  are  at  once  impressed  witli  that  fact;  our 
unconscious  mentation  is  still  swathed  in  the  mystery  of  this 
time-old  symbolism  and  it  is  altogether  inscrutable  to  one 
who  does  not  understand  the  language  of  the  unconscious. 

There  are  many  symbols  that  have  lost  their  original  mean- 
ing for  us  to-day,  though  they  are  still  commonly  used  under 
different  forms.  It  is  noteworthy  that  the  cross  was  orig- 
inally a  Phallic  symbol  and  like  so  many  other  symbols,  was 
absorbed  into  Christianity  from  Paganism.  St.  Paul  and 
other  leaders  of  the  Christian  Church  apparently  deemed  it 
best  to  allow  these  Pagan  symbols,  gradually  giving  them, 

*  Richard  Payne  Knight,  "Two  Essays  on  the  Worship  of 
Priapus,"  Privately  Printed,  London,  1865. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  FORGETTING       67 

however,  diflrerent  connotations.  As  has  been  well  pointed 
out,  "the  church  has  played  a  double  part,  a  part  of  sheer 
antagonism,  forcing  heathen  customs  into  the  shade,  into  a 
more  or  less  surreptitious  and  unprogressive  life,  and  a  part 
of  adaptation,  baptizing  them  into  Christ,  giving  them  a 
Christian  name  and  interpretation  and  often  modifying  their 
form."  1  Thus  Christmas,  which  was  originally  a  Pagan 
holiday  full  of  many  primitive  symbols,  was  transferred  to 
Christianity  and  gradually  acquired  an  altogether  different 
significance;  and  that  is  why  we  may  still  see  traces  of  the 
old  celebration  of  the  Roman  kalends  and  Saturnalia  in  a 
great  many  of  the  ceremonies  that  go  with  Christmas,  par- 
ticularly in  Greek  churches  in  the  Orient. 

It  perhaps  may  have  occurred  to  you  to  inquire  why  the 
snake  should  be  a  symbol  of  the  male  genital.  In  the  light 
of  what  I  have  already  told  you  about  the  nature  of  thought 
processes,  the  reason  is  not  far  to  seek.  Though  there  is 
no  resemblance  between  the  snake  and  the  male  genital  to 
the  conscious  eye,  there  is  nevertheless  a  hidden,  suggested 
similarity  between  them  sufficient,  at  any  rate,  for  the  un- 
conscious to  draw  the  analogy.^  The  story  of  Adam  and  Eve 
now  takes  on  its  real  allegorical  significance,  Adam  and 
Eve  represent  the  infancy  of  humanity,  when  it  was  un- 
troubled, naked  and  free ;  when  it  was  in  paradise.  Then 
comes  the  snake,  the  symbol  of  sex,  and  the  situation  takes 
on  an  altogether  different  aspect.  In  other  words,  the  child 
in  its  infancy  is  in  paradise,  but  as  soon  as  it  grows  to  the 
age  of  puberty,  it  is  driven  out  of  paradise  and  must  now 
"live  by  the  sweat  of  the  brow."  The  story  becomes  per- 
fectly comprehensible  to  us  in  this  light. 

Thus  far,  then,  I  have  tried  to  make  clear  to  you  how  the 

•  Cf.  Miles,  "Christmas." 

*  Dreams  about  snakes  are  very  common  and  we  must  guard 
against  the  conclusion  that  the  snake  necessarily  signifies  the  male 
genital  in  every  case. 


68  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

unconscious  mental  activity  consists  essentially  of  compari- 
son, and  how  the  results  of  this  comparison  by  reason  of 
their  peculiar  symbolic  character  are  naturally  not  quite  clear 
to  the  conscious  mind.  Consciously,  for  instance,  you  can 
tell  a  potato  or  an  apple  just  at  a  glance,  but  in  the  uncon- 
scious or  in  mental  confusion  you  may  associate  a  host  of 
other  things  with  their  more  or  less  characteristic  qualities 
of  roundness,  smoothness  or  color,  before  you  will  know 
that  it  is  the  one  or  the  other.  We  find  a  similar  state  in 
clouding  due  to  some  organic  brain  disturbances,  such  as 
aphasia,  in  which  certain  fibers  of  the  brain  tissues  are 
destroyed  through  a  hemorrhage,  for  instance,  and  the  brain 
as  a  result  cannot  function  normally. 

In  brief,  a  symbol  is  simply  an  analogy  between  impres- 
sions of  the  present  and  past  and  depending  upon  the  in- 
dividual it  is  either  simple  or  complex. 

Besides  the  form  of  forgetting  already  considered,  there 
is  another  form  which  we  find  in  what  we  call  "concealing 
memories."  The  latter  are  really  not  lapses  but  distortions 
of  memory.  We  encounter  them  when  we  begin  to  investi- 
gate how  far  back  into  life  the  memory  can  go.  Ask  people 
what  they  remember  of  their  childhood  and  it  is  remarkable 
to  see  how  little  they  can  tell  you ;  indeed,  some 
ceSing-  will  say  that  they  can  recall  nothing.    You  will 

Memories  ^^  furthermore  impressed  with  the  comparative 
insignificance  of  the  reproduced  material,  which  is  surpris- 
ingly trivial  in  character  and  seems  to  have  little  or  nothing 
to  do  with  the  individual's  life.  The  earliest  recollections 
seem  to  preserve  the  unimportant  and  accidental,  whereas, 
usually,  though  not  universally,  not  a  trace  is  found  in  the 
adult  memory  of  the  weighty  and  affective  impressions  of 
this  early  period.  An  individual  recalled,  for  instance,  that 
his  father  lifted  him  up  to  a  bird  cage ;  one  man  told  me  some 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  FORGETTING       69 

time  ago  that  he  remembers  that  his  mother  found  a  cent, — 
and  nothing  more.  Examination  shows  that  these  indifferent 
childhood  memories  owe  their  existence  to  a  process  of  dis- 
placement, by  which  we  mean  a  deflection  of  a  certain 
amount  of  energy  to  some  extraneous  material,  to  an  idea 
or  emotion  to  which  it  really  does  not  belong.  We  observe 
the  phenomenon  daily.  A  man  may  have  quarrelled  with 
his  wife,  for  instance,  and  now  relieves  himself  of  his  ire 
by  finding  fault  with  his  stenographer's  spelling  and  dis- 
charging her.  These  memories  represent  in  the  reproduc- 
tion the  substitute  for  other  really  significant  impressions 
whose  direct  reproduction  is  hindered  by  some  resistance. 
They  owe  their  existence  not  to  their  own  content,  but  to 
an  associative  relation  of  their  content  to  another  repressed 
thought  and  are  therefore  justly  called  "concealing  mem- 
ories." They  themselves  are  not  important,  but  they  conceal 
something.  The  individual  whose  father  lifted  him  up  to  a 
bird  cage  did  not  remember  the  experience  because  of  its 
importance,  but  because  there  was  back  of  it  something  tliat 
was  repressed  and  was  now  concealed  under  that  memory. 

The  content  of  the  concealing  memory  seems  to  belong 
to  the  first  years  of  childhood,  but  the  thoughts  it  represents 
belong  to  a  later  period  of  the  individual  in  question. 
Freud  calls  this  form  of  displacement  retroactive  (acting 
backward)  or  regressive.  The  reverse  relationship  is  more 
often  found,  that  is,  an  indifferent  impression  of  the  most 
remote  period  becomes  the  concealing  memory  in  conscious- 
ness which  simply  owes  its  existence  to  an  association  with 
an  earlier  experience,  against  whose  direct  reproduction 
there  are  resistances.  These  are  called  encroaching  or  inter- 
posing concealing  memories.  What  most  concerns  the 
memory  lies  here,  in  point  of  time,  beyond  the  concealing 
memory.  They  all  show  a  remarkable  resemblance  to  the 
forgetting  of  proper  names  and  faulty  recollections,  as  for 


70  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

instance,  in  the  case  of  "Lapin,"  where  I  thought  of  "Appen- 
zeller."  These  new  names  or  memories  that  encroach 
upon  our  consciousness  when  we  try  to  recollect  the 
original  one  are  always  in  some  way  related  to  the  real 
memories  that  are  behind  them. 

The  question  as  to  how  far  back  into  childhood  our 
memories  go  has  been  investigated  by  many  writers.  They 
found  that  there  is  a  wide  individual  variation,  inasmuch  as 
some  trace  their  first  reminiscences  to  the  sixth  month  of 
life,  while  others  can  recall  nothing  before  the  sixth  or  even 
eighth  year.  Simple  questioning  is  not  enough,  as  every- 
day experience  in  psychoanalytic  work  demonstrates.  The 
results  should  later  be  subjected  to  a  study  in  which  the 
person  furnishing  the  information  must  participate,  that  is, 
the  memories  should  be  analyzed.  For  the  infantile  am- 
nesia, that  is,  the  failure  of  memory  for  the  first  years  of 
our  lives  should  not  be  accepted  as  a  matter  of  course.  We 
should  remember  that  a  child  of  four  years  is  capable  of 
great  intellectual  accomplishments  and  complex  emotional 
feelings.  I  have  seen  children  of  that  age  fall  in  love.  Dr. 
Sanford  Bell  of  Clarke  University  has  found  this  amorous 
disposition  to  exist  even  at  the  age  of  two.  It  is  really  re- 
markable how  little  of  these  psychic  processes  have  as  a 
rule  been  retained  in  later  years  and  yet  we  have  every 
reason  to  believe  that  these  forgotten  childhood  activities 
have  not  glided  off  without  leaving  a  trace  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  person.  We  must  remember  that  a  person  is 
always  the  product  of  the  sum  total  of  his  impressions  and 
that  it  is  absolutely  impossible  for  him  to  cut  out  a  period, 
or  block,  as  it  were,  of  his  life  and  go  ahead.  There  is  no 
break  in  the  continuity  of  the  psychic  life.  I  have  found 
that  many  individuals  who  declared  they  had  not  the 
faintest  memory  of  their  early  childhood  experiences,  had 
really  accomplished  in  that  early  period  many  significant 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  FORGETTING       71 

things,  which  were  gradually  revealed  in  dreams  or  casual 
associations  and  which  were  later  corroborated  by  the  diary 
kept  by  the  parent.  Perhaps  the  most  interesting  case  of 
this  kind  was  that  of  a  man  whom  I  analyzed  for  six  months, 
during  which  he  brought  to  the  surface  many  things  which 
we  felt  were  probably  true.  After  five  months  he  received 
a  letter  from  his  father  in  which  the  latter  stated  that  he  was 
sending  him  under  separate  cover  a  diary  that  the  parent 
kept  from  the  day  of  the  patient's  birth  until  the  age  of 
about  thirty.  We  were  very  glad  to  receive  it,  and  it  has 
given  me  much  pleasure,  because  it  has  confirmed  practically 
everything  concerning  which  we  entertained  any  doubts.  In 
some  cases  it  is  remarkable  how  special  incidents  are  cor- 
roborated. A  man  whom  I  am  treating  at  present  visited  the 
nurse  whom  he  had  from  the  age  of  one  and  a  half  to  eight. 
She  related  experiences  of  his  early  childhood  that  he  never 
knew  anything  about,  and  here,  too,  her  information  cor- 
roborated everything  that  I  assumed  on  a  theoretical  basis. 

As  I  pointed  out,  children  take  up  impressions  from  the 
very  beginning  of  their  existence.  As  time  goes  on,  Locke's 
"tabula  rasa"  becomes  more  and  more  filled  with  them,  and 
like  a  book,  the  older  the  individual,  the  more  voluminous  it 
is.  These  traces  of  early  life  always  remain  and  because 
they  are  subjected  to  repression,  they  come  to  the  surface 
more  or  less  disguised  and  incomplete;  they  are  falsified  or 
displaced  in  point  of  time  and  place.  Motives  may  be  dis- 
covered, however,  which  explain  these  disfigurements  and  we 
find  that  these  memory  lapses  are  not  the  result  of  a  mere  un- 
reliable memory.  Powerful  forces  from  a  later  period  have 
molded  the  memory  capacity  of  our  infantile  experiences, 
and  it  is  probably  due  to  these  same  forces  that  the  under- 
standing of  our  childhood  is  generally  so  very  strange  to  us. 

A  case  of  "concealing  memories"  reported  by  Professor 
Freud  is  that  of  a  young  man  who  declared  that  he  remem- 


72  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

bered  seeing  himself  standing  by  the  side  of  his  aunt  and 
asking  her  the  difference  between  the  letter  m  and  the  letter  n. 
There  was  no  reason  why  he  should  remember  this  par- 
ticular experience,  except  in  that  it  concealed  something  else 
vastly  more  significant  and  important.  The  thoughts  repre- 
sented by  the  memory  concerned  itself  with  his  wish  later 
in  life  to  know  the  difference  between  a  boy  and  a  girl;  he 
wanted  his  aunt  to  tell  him  the  difference,  but  he  dared  not 
broach  the  subject.  Later  on,  however,  he  found  that  the 
difference  was  very  similar  to  that  between  the  letter  m  and  n ; 
one  has  one  stroke  more  than  the  other. 

One  of  my  patients  informed  me  once  that  his  memory 
went  back  to  the  time  of  his  baptism,  when  he  was  about  a 
week  old.  He  maintained  that  he  distinctly  remembered  the 
house  and  the  stairway  leading  up  to  the  first  floor  where  he 
was  supposed  to  have  been  baptized.  He  particularly  re- 
called a  lamp  standing  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs  and  the 
minister  who  performed  the  baptism,  a  tall  man  in  a  black 
frock  coat.  He  remembered  vividly  how  his  head  was 
totally  submerged  in  a  basin  of  water.  I  was  naturally 
skeptical  and  explained  to  him  that  I  thought  it  was  a  con- 
cealing memory  which  probably  hid  something  else  of  a  much 
later  date.  He  then  informed  me  that  he  had  entertained 
this  memory  for  many  years,  but  that  when  he  imparted  it  to 
his  mother  a  few  years  ago  she  laughed,  declaring  that  there 
was  no  truth  in  it,  that  in  the  first  place,  he  was  not  born 
in  this  particular  house,  but  that  he  had  merely  lived  there 
from  the  age  of  four  to  six,  that  she  could  not  recall  this 
particular  lamp,  that  the  minister  who  really  baptized  him 
was  not  tall,  and  what  was  more,  that  the  baby's  head  is  not 
submerged  in  a  basin  of  water  during  baptism.  Notwith- 
standing his  mother's  absolute  denial,  the  patient  continued 
to  entertain  this  memory;  he  strongly  felt  that  it  was  true 
despite  all  facts  to  the  contrary.    I  called  his  attention  to  the 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  FORGETTING       73 

fact  that  his  mother  had  no  motive  for  denying  it  and  that 
so  far  as  I  know,  it  would  be  impossible  to  retain  anything 
from  so  early  an  age.  We  then  proceeded  to  analyze  it. 
He  stated  that  the  most  vivid  element  in  the  memory  was 
the  lamp  and  so  I  asked  him  to  concentrate  his  attention  on 
it  and  give  me  his  associations.  He  could  see  the  lamp  at 
the  foot  of  the  stairs,  the  stairway,  and  the  room  on  the  first 
floor.  He  then  recalled  that  at  the  age  of  about  five  years 
he  was  standing  one  afternoon  in  that  room  watching  a 
Swedish  servant  who  was  either  on  a  high  chair  or  a  step- 
ladder  cleaning  the  chandelier.  He  became  very  inquisitive 
sexually  and  made  a  great  effort  to  look  under  her  clothes. 
She  noticed  it  and  gave  him  a  very  strong  rebuke.  He  then 
recalled  that  a  few  years  later  he  watched  through  a  keyhole 
to  see  his  mother  dress,  and  somehow  she  caught  him  and 
punished  him  very  severely  for  it.  He  was  very  much 
humiliated,  for  she  took  him  downstairs  to  the  dining  room 
and  told  his  father  and  brother  what  he  had  done.  At  about 
the  same  age,  probably  a  little  before  this  episode  with  his 
mother,  he  was  on  the  roof  one  evening  and  spied  a  woman 
undressing  in  a  house  across  the  street.  In  his  great  ex- 
citement, he  ran  down  to  call  his  brother,  but  when  he  re- 
turned the  woman  had  already  slipped  a  nightgown  on  and 
was  now  pulling  down  the  shades.  He  told  me  that  for 
years  he  regretted  that  he  went  to  call  his  brother.  He  kept 
on  reproducing  more  scenes,  all  of  which  dealt  with 
frustrated  sexual  looking. 

We  must  remember  that  sexual  curiosity  is  a  very  com^ 
mon,  indeed,  I  may  say,  a  universal  mechanism  in  all 
children  who  are  brought  up  as  the  average  parents  bring 
them  up  to-day,  without  answering  their  questions,  impart- 
ing to  them  nothing  of  the  vital  knowledge  for  which  they 
crave.  Children  perpetually  ask  questions,  and  if  these  are 
not  answered,  they  develop  a  strong  inquisitiveness  for  look- 


74  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

ing,  particularly  in  homes  where  the  mother  is  prudish  and 
takes  every  opportunity  to  conceal  and  thus  impress  upon 
the  child's  sensitive  mind  that  there  is  something  to  be  hid- 
den. If  it  is  for  nothing  other  than  the  exercising  of  the 
faculties  of  intellect,  the  child  possesses  here  already  suffi- 
cient material  to  become  inquisitive.  But  consider  also  the 
presence  of  the  biological  factor ;  nature  has  endowed  every 
human  being  with  the  desire  to  know  about  sex  because  the 
latter  is  a  tremendously  important  problem  in  life.  The 
lamp,  therefore,  represented  in  the  psychic  life  of  this 
patient  a  contrast  association  of  darkness  which  stood  in  the 
way  of  his  sexual  inquisitiveness.  That  is  why  the  lamp 
element  was  so  accentuated  in  his  memory. 

The  question  now  presents  itself,  "Why  did  he  remember 
the  fact  of  his  baptism?"  This  young  man  is  a  good 
Christian,  his  parents  are  Christians,  but  his  paternal 
grandfather  was  a  Jew.  He  himself  shows  no  traces  of 
Semitism;  the  only  thing  he  retains  from  his  grandfather 
is  the  name.  It  is  a  German  name  which  is  often  mistaken 
for  a  Jewish  one,  and  for  this  reason,  it  has  given  him  con- 
siderable trouble.  He  was  refused,  for  instance,  admission 
to  a  certain  school  because  of  his  name.  At  college  it  was 
suspected  that  he  was  Jewish  and  on  that  account  he  failed 
to  be  elected  to  a  fraternity  that  admitted  only  Gentiles. 
The  concealing  memory  of  his  baptism  is  thus  a  compen- 
sation for  his  suspected  Judaism  and  that  is  why  it  retained 
its  vividness,  his  mother's  denial  to  the  contrary.  He  had 
to  be  assured  that  he  was  baptized  and  therefore  was  a 
Christian.  On  the  whole,  the  memory  represents  a  religious 
scene  in  order  to  hide  an  immoral  scene  of  marked  affective 
content.  At  the  age  of  puberty  there  was  a  complete  re- 
pression of  all  sexual  elements,  and  he  became  a  model  boy 
in  every  way.  He  is  now  over  thirty-six  years  old  and  has 
never  had  any  kind  of  relations  with  the  opposite  sex.     He 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  FORGETTING       75 

is  a  shy,  seclusive,  reserved  personality  and  is  remarkably 
ignorant  of  everything  sexual.  This  is  only  a  reaction  to  his 
early  immorality,  and  was  affected  by  the  various  shocks  or 
set-backs  he  sustained  in  his  effort  to  adjust  himself  to  his 
adult  sexuality.  Had  his  mother  realized  at  the  time  she 
caught  him  peeping  that  his  inquisitiveness  was  only  an  ex- 
pression of  his  budding  sexuality  and  had  she  explained  to 
him  in  a  frank,  sympathetic  way  that  it  was  not  nice  for  a 
little  boy  to  do  this  or  that,  he  would  probably  have  been  able 
like  his  brother  to  adjust  himself  normally,  to  find  a  mate, 
and  marry.  But  as  it  is,  his  parents  regretted  to  the  day  of 
their  death  that  they  could  not  see  him  married. 

Thus  what  we  generally  look  upon  as  forgetting  is  not 
that  at  all ;  certain  things  are  merely  pushed  into  the  uncon- 
sciousness, because  of  something  unpleasant  associated  with 
them;  we  are  not  aware  of  them  consciously  and  so  we 
naturally  presume  we  have  forgotten  them.  We  may  crowd 
out  something  from  consciousness,  but  we  never  forget  it; 
it  always  remains  in  the  unconscious.  What  profound  truth 
in  the  observation  of  an  old  Greek  philosopher  who,  when 
called  upon  to  teach  one  the  art  of  remembering  replied: 
"Rather  teach  me  the  art  of  forgetting!" 


CHAPTER  IV 
PSYCHOPATHOLOGY  OF  EVERY-DAY  LIFE 

We  do  not  have  to  go  far  to  be  convinced  how  significant 
a  role  the  unconscious  plays  in  life.  The  proof  is  at  our 
door.  All  the  "little"  mistakes  that  we  all  are  constantly 
making,  lapses  in  talking,  writing,  etc.,  our  so  called  for- 
getting and  absent-mindedness  show  very  definitely  to  what 
a  surprising  extent  our  thoughts  and  actions  are  influenced 
by  the  unconscious.  If  we  have  our  eyes  open,  examples  of 
such  unconscious  manifestations  may  be  found  on  all  sides. 
I  shall  cite  some  to  you  out  of  a  vast  number  that  have  come 
to  my  attention  from  time  to  time,  and  I  hope  they  will 
prove  sufficiently  interesting  to  stimulate  you  to  observation 
in  your  own  daily  lives. 

Mr.  L.,  a  newspaper  man,  once  assured  me  that  he  could 
disprove  Freud's  theory  of  forgetting  with  very  little  effort. 
He  proceeded  at  once  to  tell  me  that  he  had  oc- 
ting-  '  casion  to  write  to  his  friend  living  in  Boston,  and 
upon  addressing  the  letter  he  found  he  forgot  his 
last  name,  and  that  it  was  only  after  a  considerable  amount 
of  thought  that  he  could  recall  that  it  was  Murphy.  He  con- 
tinued to  declare  quite  warmly  that  it  was  strange  and  sur- 
prising that  he  should  thus  forget  the  name  of  a  friend, 
formerly  his  school  mate  and  chum,  whom  he  could  not 
associate  with  absolutely  any  disagreeable  or  painful  ex- 
perience. We  proceeded  to  analyze  the  case.  I  asked  him 
to  tell  me  something  about  his  friend  whom  he  designated 
as  Jack.    He  associated  his  name  with  Murphy  of  Tammany 

76 


PSYCHOPATHOLOGY  OF  EVERY-DAY  LIFE      77 

Hall  and  though  the  former  was  a  Republican  he  felt  that 
that  was  no  reason  why  he  should  dislike  the  name  Murphy. 
After  associating  for  a  little  while,  he  ended  by  saying: 
"You  see,  then,  doctor,  there  is  absolutely  nothing  disagree- 
able connected  with  the  name."  But  I  urged  him  to  con- 
tinue his  associations,  and  finally  there  came  to  his  mind 
another  Murphy  who  played  an  altogether  different  part  in 
his  life  from  that  of  his  friend.  The  moment  he  uttered  his 
name,  I  could  see  a  marked  change  in  his  facial  expression 
and  voice ;  he  became  flushed  with  anger.  This  man  de- 
ceived him  and  still  owed  him  money,  and  L.  hated  him. 
That  was  sufficient  to  explain  his  temporary  forgetting. 
He  never  had  occasion  to  write  to  his  own  friend  before,  he 
always  knew  and  thought  of  him  as  Jack  and  never  as- 
sociated him  with  Murphy;  besides,  his  friend  had  no 
parents  so  that  he  had  no  opportunity  to  use  his  name  even 
under  other  circumstances.  We  must  remember  that  we 
think  of  a  person  in  terms  of  the  name  that  we  call  him  by. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  was  the  name  Murphy  which  was 
associated  in  his  mind  with  something  distinctly  painful,  and 
it  was  therefore  natural  that  when  he  came  to  write  to  his 
friend  for  the  first  time,  he  could  not  associate  the  disagree- 
able element  in  his  repression  with  his  name.  That  was  why 
he  was  compelled  to  stop  and  recall  it;  he  simply  refused  to 
give  his  friend  a  name  that  was  connected  in  his  mind  with 
the  painful  and  disagreeable. 

We  find  the  same  mechanism  in  such  episodes  as  this: 
A  woman  meets  a  friend  of  hers  who  married  recently  and 
instead  of  addressing  her  Mrs.  Smith,  calls  her  by  her 
maiden  name.  When  you  investigate  the  mistake  you  discover 
that  she  has  absolutely  no  respect  for  Mrs.  Smith's  husband, 
and  what  is  more,  she  did  not  want  her  to  marry  him  from 
the  very  beginning.  We  see  this  same  thing  when  a  woman 
refuses  to  use  her  husband's  name.    There  is  no  other  reason 


78  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

than  that  of  expediency  why  a  woman  should  drop  her  own 
name ;  the  practice  of  adopting  the  husband's  name  was  in- 
augurated originally  mostly  for  the  sake  of  convenience;  it 
eliminated  various  unnecessary  complications.  And  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  there  are  still  primitive  tribes  that  continue 
the  surname  of  the  mother  right  through  the  family  line. 
But  if  it  is  customary  for  a  married  woman  to  take  her 
husband's  name,  we  may  safely  say  that  it  augurs  little 
good  if  she  persists  in  holding  on  to  her  own  maiden  one; 
it  is  particularly  significant  if  she  reverts  to  her  own  name, 
after  having  been  accustomed  to  use  that  of  her  husband 
with  whom  she  has  lived  for  quite  some  time.  A  case  like 
this  was  reported  to  me  a  few  years  ago  in  which  a  woman 
wrote  a  letter  and  instead  of  her  marriage  name  signed  her 
maiden  one.  I  remarked  then  that  it  was  a  bad  omen,  and  I 
know  now  that  she  is  separated  from  her  husband.  It  is  a 
different  matter  when  a  married  woman  retains  her  maiden 
name  because  of  some  distinction  or  accomplishment  to 
which  she  properly  can  lay  claim.  Here  the  purpose  is  to 
maintain  whatever  significance  her  special  position  may  have, 
distinct  and  separate  from  her  relations  as  wife.  Among 
professional  women,  accordingly,  it  is  common  to  retain  the 
maiden  name,  and  as  far  as  I  know,  the  husband  does  not 
seem  to  have  any  objection  to  it  at  all.  We  are  always  lay- 
ing emphasis  on  the  importance  of  individual  cases;  but  we 
may  safely  say  that  as  a  rule  when  a  married  woman  uses 
her  maiden  name,  it  means  that  in  the  unconscious  she  does 
not  wish  to  consider  herself  married. 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  a  further  illustration  of  this 
principle  in  the  substitution  of  another  person's  name  for 
one's  own.  A  few  years  ago  I  received  a  letter  from  a 
minister  in  Oklahoma,  asking  me  to  send  him  a  list  of  books 
for  reading  along  Freudian  lines.  The  letter  was  type- 
written and  there  was  at  the  bottom  his  name  in  hand- 


PSYCHOPATHOLOGY  OF  EVERY-DAY  LIFE      79 

writing,  C.  A.  Brill.  His  real  name  was  Beard  and  there 
was  the  irresistible  conclusion  that  he  signed  my  name  be- 
cause he  considered  me  an  authority  on  the  subject,  and 
unconsciously  identified  himself  with  me;  he  wished,  one 
might  say,  to  know  as  much  about  psychoanalysis  as  I  did. 
When  I  related  this  incident  to  my  class  here,  it  was  sug- 
gested that  the  letter  may  have  been  signed  by  the  minister's 
stenographer,  whereupon  one  of  the  students  assured  me 
that  if  I  showed  her  the  letter  she  would  be  able  to  verify 
the  minister's  signature,  for  she  knew  his  handwriting  very 
well.  She  came  from  the  same  state  and  knew  him  per- 
sonally; and  what  was  more,  it  v/as  upon  her  suggestion 
that  he  wrote  the  letter  to  me.  When  she  glanced  at  the 
letter  she  immediately  recognized  his  signature.  And  so 
my  conclusion  was  completely  corroborated. 

Now  it  was  essentially  no  pleasant  or  agreeable  motive  that 
prompted  him  to  make  that  error ;  there  was  the  unconscious 
wish  to  eliminate  what  seemed  to  him  a  shortcoming,  a  con- 
dition of  ignorance  in  relation  to  a  subject  which  he  con- 
sciously desired  to  know  and  understand.  We  find  this 
same  condition  among  neurotics.  In  treating  them  we  often 
learn  that  they  cannot  pronounce  certain  words,  particularly 
certain  names.  This  whole  motive  of  names  plays  a  most 
fascinating  part  in  mythology;  discover  the  name  in  some 
fairy-stories  and  there  is  the  greatest  misfortune.  You  may 
very  often  find  among  neurotics  that  the  only  reason  why 
they  have  difficulty  in  pronouncing  and  therefore  stammer 
over  some  particular  word  or  name  is  because  there  is  some- 
thing painful  and  disagreeable  connected  with  it.  I  am 
going  to  illustrate  this  presently  by  a  definite  case  of  stam- 
mering. 

By  way  of  digression,  perhaps,  let  us  say  at  this  point 
that  it  has  been  recognized  by  most  students  and  observers 
that  most  cases  of  stammering  are  not  due  to  organic  con- 


8o  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

ditions,  that  indeed  very  few  cases  may  be  traced  to  some 
disturbance  in  the  throat  or  vocal  organs.  It  is  essentially 
a  neurotic  disturbance  that  usually  comes  on  at  an  early 
period  in  a  nervous  type  of  individual  and  then  gradually 
assumes  the  character  of  a  habit,  in  which  form  it  continues 
in  the  future.  In  studying  an  abnormal  condition,  it  is 
highly  instructive  to  examine  its  normal  counterpart.  When 
do  you  stammer  yourself  ?  It  is  a  common  observation  that 
upon  being  asked  your  age,  you  will  never  answer  im- 
mediately. Some  among  us  will  even  anticipate  the  next 
question  and  hasten  to  answer  it.  I  have  heard  of  a  woman 
who  was  asked  how  old  she  was  and  after  stammering  for  a 
while,  replied  quite  blandly,  "In  Boston."  She  did  not  wish 
to  reply,  and  at  once  turned  her  attention  to  the  expected 
question  as  to  her  place  of  birth.  But  we  show  no  degree 
of  hesitation  when  we  are  called  upon  to  respond  to  a  ques- 
tion to  which  we  have  no  resistance.  When  you  ask  a 
friend  for  a  loan  of  ten  dollars  and  he  at  once  says,  "Alright, 
have  it,"  then  he  really  wishes  to  give  it  to  you ;  but  if  he 
pauses  and  says,  "Now,  let  me  think,"  you  may  be  certain 
that  he  does  not  want  to  lend  it.  Invite  a  friend  to  dinner 
and  if  he  stammers  and  stutters  a  reply,  he  is  not  anxious 
to  go;  there  is  a  psychic  impediment  somewhere. 

When  we  study  speech  disturbances  we  find  that  they  have 
the  same  origin,  they  may  be  ultimately  reduced  to  some 
very  simple  inhibition  begun  at  a  very  early  age.  The  child, 
for  instance,  may  have  done  something  that  it  knows  it  will 
be  punished  for ;  let  us  say  it  has  stolen  jam  or  candy. 
When  questioned  it  will  hesitate  to  speak  but  on  being 
compelled  to  confess  it  will  stammer  on  the  significant 
word.  In  time  this  particular  word  or  expression  con- 
nected with  the  unpleasant  episode  gradually  becomes  gen- 
eralized and  the  resulting  condition  remains  more  or  less 
fixed.     Now  I  do  not  wish  that  you  get  the  impression  that 


PSYCHOPATHOLOGY  OF  EVERY-DAY  LIFE      81 

stammering  is  a  simple  condition  that  may  be  remedied  by 
merely  probing  its  beginnings  in  the  individual's  psychic  life; 
it  is  one  of  the  hardest  neuroses  to  cure  and  only  few  of 
those  who  receive  treatment  are  ultimately  in  any  real  sense 
cured.  But  to  get  more  or  less  successful  results  at  all,  one 
should  combine  psychoanalysis  with  vocal  training,  and  con- 
tinue the  treatment  for  a  long  time.  All  my  successful  cases 
have  been  under  my  care  at  least  a  year,  sometimes  longer. 
This,  of  course,  applies  to  those  who  began  to  stammer  early 
in  life,  to  the  so-called  congenital  cases,  though  there  are 
very  few  cases  that  I  have  seen  in  which  the  history  reveals 
the  condition  from  the  very  beginning.  Patients  of  this 
type  are  difficult  to  cure,  and  every  so-called  remedy  can  be 
of  only  temporary  benefit  to  them. 

A  very  intelligent  stammerer,  for  instance,  came  to  me  for 
treatment.  He  was  a  man  of  means  and  he  had  tried  all 
sorts  of  methods ;  some  of  them  were  indeed  very  ludicrous. 
One  man  sold  him  some  sort  of  appliance  that  the  former 
maintained  was  sure  to  cure  him,  but  it  was  merely  a  belt 
which  the  patient  had  to  wear  so  tight  around  the  waist 
that  every  time  he  uttered  a  word,  there  was  no  mistaking 
that  he  had  it  on.  That  distracted  him,  of  course,  and  he 
talked  fairly  well  for  a  while.  But  the  remedy  soon  lost  its 
magic  potency;  it  is  hard  to  say  whether  the  belt  stretched 
or  his  waist  became  thinner,  but  he  soon  began  to  stammer 
again.  The  sum  and  substance  of  the  usual  treatment  that 
patients  of  this  kind  get  at  the  various  schools,  such  as 
stamping  with  the  foot  or  speaking  in  a  certain  fluctuated 
way,  consists  entirely  of  this  distraction  principle ;  there  is  no 
doubt  but  what  it  helps  them  a  little,  but  that  of  and  by 
itself  will  not  make  for  permanent  results;  the  psychic 
factors  in  the  case  must  always  be  dealt  with. 

Of  course  there  are  some  patients  who  never  stutter  at  all 
until  they  merge  into  a  neurosis ;  these  can  be  cured  through 


82  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

analysis ;  but  they  can  derive  no  permanent  help  from  mere 
training  or  distraction.  The  case  of  a  man  of  this  type  came 
to  my  attention  some  years  ago.  He  stuttered  in  different 
ways,  with  the  arms,  body  and  mouth.  He  could  not  touch  a 
glass  of  beer  or  a  plate  of  soup  without  a  fatal  result:  his 
hand  would  turn  down  and  the  contents  would  be  spilled. 
Of  ice  cream  he  could  have  as  much  as  his  heart  desired, 
but  for  some  mysterious  reason,  beer  and  soup  were  ab- 
solutely tabooed.  He  also  stammered  badly,  and  as  his 
position  demanded  much  telephone  conversation,  he  was 
compelled  to  give  it  up.  I  treated  him  and  he  did  very  well ; 
in  the  course  of  time  he  was  able  to  drink  all  of  soup  and 
beer  he  wished,  much  to  his  great  delight.  But  I  could  not 
make  any  headway  with  his  stuttering  and  it  finally  occurred 
to  me  that  there  must  be  something  definite  connected  with 
it.  This  was  his  history :  He  lived  a  sort  of  common  law  life 
with  a  woman  for  whom  he  sustained  an  apartment,  while 
he  stayed  with  his  mother  who  was  a  religious  Catholic.  He 
introduced  her  to  a  friend  of  his  with  whom  she  presently 
fell  in  love  and  who  offered  to  marry  her.  She  consented 
and  left  her  former  friend.  It  was  a  terrible  blow  to  the 
patient  for  he  had  really  intended  to  marry  her  himself; 
and  it  was  following  this  misfortune  that  he  suffered  his 
nervous  breakdown.  It  occurred  to  me  that  his  condition 
may  perhaps  be  connected  directly  or  indirectly  with  this 
experience.  When  I  began  to  investigate  the  matter,  I 
learned  that  he  began  to  stutter  with  the  sound  of  "k"  or  in 
other  words  with  the  sound  of  "ck";  but  as  "c"  has  two 
sounds,  his  condition  soon  spread  to  "s"  and  then  to  all 
words  beginning  with  "k,"  regardless  of  '  whether  it  was 
pronounced  or  not,  as  for  instance  in  such  a  word  as  "knife ;" 
and  so  finally  he  seemed  to  stammer  almost  on  every  letter. 
I  had  noticed  that  he  always  referred  to  the  particular 
woman  in  question  as  "that  woman"  and  I  decided  to  in- 


PSYCHOPATHOLOGY  OF  EVERY-DAY  LIFE     83 

vestigate  the  matter.  But  the  moment  I  asked  him  what 
her  name  was  he  grew  visibly  affected,  and  declared  ex- 
citedly that  he  could  not  tell  me.  I  assured  him  that  I  asked 
the  question  out  of  no  mere  curiosity,  but  for  a  very  definite 
and  important  reason.  When  he  refused  to  give  me  the 
name,  I  closed  the  matter  by  stating  that  I  could  then  do 
nothing  for  him  under  the  circumstances,  for  there  is  a 
tacit  understanding  between  me  and  my  patients  that  they 
are  to  hold  nothing  back  from  me,  that  they  are  to  be  an 
open  book  to  me,  as  it  were.  He  was  quite  willing  to  leave 
me,  particularly  since  he  felt  he  was  much  better  anyway. 
But  in  a  few  weeks  he  grew  worse  and  returned  to  me.  He 
then  explained  that  in  his  anger  he  actually  had  vowed 
never  to  utter  the  woman's  name  again.  I  quieted  him  and 
assured  him  that  I  would  take  the  sin  upon  my  own 
shoulders.  He  finally  was  willing  to  tell  her  name  if  I 
promised  him  that  I  would  not  write  it  down.  I  readily 
consented  and  pointed  out  to  him  that,  in  my  notes,  I  desig- 
nated her  as  Miss  W.  Thus  I  finally  succeeded  in  persuading 
him  to  disclose  to  me  her  name.  It  was  Keith.  I  was  now 
quite  convinced  why  he  stuttered ;  it  was  the  sound  of  "k" 
which  was  under  repression  that  was  the  significant  factor  in 
the  origin  of  his  condition.  I  concluded  at  once  that  if  my 
theory  was  correct,  he  would  now  necessarily  stutter  on  every 
word  beginning  with  "w,"  for  as  I  said,  I  substituted  that 
letter  for  the  "k"  in  the  woman's  name,  and  impressed  it  upon 
his  mind  when  I  showed  him  the  substitution  in  my  notes. 
About  a  week  later  he  told  me  that  he  was  otherwise  ap- 
preciably better  but  that  his  speech  impediment  was  growing 
worse;  he  proceeded  to  state  that  now  he  was  not  able  to 
pronounce  even  his  brother's  name ;  and  upon  inquiring  what 
it  was,  he  stammered  out  the  name  "W-W-W- William." 
To  be  sure,  the  moment  it  became  intimately  connected  in  his 
mind  with  the  name  of  Keith  in  the  substitutive  relation 


84  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

noted,  it  was  at  once  tabooed  and  repressed.  After  I  ex- 
plained to  him  the  deeper  meaning  of  these  psychic  processes 
he  gradually  began  to  improve  in  his  speech  and  finally  re- 
covered. 

To  return  to  the  psychopathology  of  forgetting  names. 
Here  is  an  interesting  lapse  of  memory  that  was  brought  to 
my  attention  by  one  of  my  patients.  She  told  me  she  was 
trying  to  think  of  a  name  of  a  small  town  near  White 
Plains  and  that  the  first  name  that  came  to  her  mind  was 
"Prudence."  She  knew  that  was  not  the  name  of  the  place, 
but  after  thinking  for  a  long  time  she  finally  found  it;  it 
was  "Purchase."  Analysis  revealed  that  she  was  a  woman 
who  always  had  differences  with  her  husband  about  her 
expenses.  One  of  her  great  interests  in  life  was  to  purchase 
things  and  she  had  to  try  very  hard  to  live  within  her  means, 
for  her  husband  was  often  unable  to  pay  all  the  bills  that  she 
ran  up.  Thus  the  moment  she  wanted  to  think  of  the  name 
"Purchase,"  there  at  once  came  to  her  consciousness  a  re- 
pressed and  painful  element  followed  directly  by  the  word 
"Prudence"  denoting,  to  be  sure,  a  good  New  England  virtue 
which  teaches  one  to  live  frugally. 

Here  is  another  case  related  to  me  by  a  friend  of  mine. 
He  recently  met  a  young  lady  in  a  cafe  with  whom  he  was 
evidently  very  much  impressed;  she  was  the  type  of  woman 
that  he  liked.  He  engaged  in  conversation  with  her  and 
when  she  left,  they  exchanged  names.  To  her  query 
whether  he  will  remember  her  name,  he  answered  pleasantly 
and  positively:  "Why,  of  course  I  will!"  Her  name  hap- 
pened to  be  "Raub."  In  speaking  of  her  the  next  day  to 
his  intimate  friend,  he  referred  to  her  quite  unconsciously 
as  Miss  Braun.  When  his  friend  betrayed  utter  ignorance 
as  to  whom  he  meant,  he  paused,  thought  a  while  and  soon 
saw  his  mistake.  As  you  see,  "Braun"  contains  all  the 
letters  of  "Raub"  and  when  I  asked  him  who  this  "Braun" 


PSYCHOPATHOLOGY  OF  EVERY-DAY  LIFE      85 

was,  he  immediately  told  me  of  an  important  and  interesting 
character  in  the  third  volume  of  "J^^^  Christophe,"  who 
made  a  powerful  emotional  appeal  to  him  and  was  more  or 
less  his  ideal  type  of  woman  physically.  Thus  he  uncon- 
sciously identified  Miss  "Raub"  with  this  particular  woman. 
But  why  should  he  change  her  name?  In  the  first  place, 
it  did  not  appeal  to  him;  it  suggests  in  German  the 
thought  of  stealing  or  plunder.  But  what  is  of  greater 
significance,  he  is  a  literary  man  and  identified  himself 
with  Romain  Rolland  as  he  has  done  on  previous  occa- 
sions with  other  authors.  Like  Jean  Christophe  who  had 
that  powerful  love  afifair  with  Mrs.  Braun,  he  too  would 
have  an  amour  with  this  Miss  "Raub"  and  straightway  the 
latter's  name  was  changed.  The  whole  mentation  was 
absolutely  unconscious.  The  significant  element  to  observe 
here  is  the  strong  identification  which  played,  also,  so  in- 
teresting a  part  in  the  case  of  the  minister  who  identified 
himself  with  "Brill." 

People  very  often  take  exception  to  this  psychology  and  I 
have  had  many  interesting  experiences  with  skeptics.  I  once 
read  a  paper  at  the  Academy  of  Medicine  and  there  was  a 
well-known  professor  of  academic  psychology  present  who 
took  the  opportunity  to  call  me  to  account  for  the  theory  of 
forgetting  of  names.  He  declared  that  while  reading  a 
paper  of  mine  on  this  subject  it  occurred  to  him  that  there 
was  a  stenographer  in  his  college  whose  name  he  could  never 
remember,  and  this,  despite  the  fact  that  she  has  been  there 
for  a  number  of  years,  and  that  he  has  occasion  to  talk  to 
her  very  often.  And  then  he  went  on  to  state  that  it  was 
not  at  all  a  peculiar  name,  that  it  was  .  .  .  and  here  he 
stopped,  utterly  unable  to  recall  it.  The  audience  smiled  and 
then  he  said :  "You  see  I  have  the  bad  habit  of  forgetting 
proper  names.  But  I  now  have  a  mnemonic  for  this  name,  it 
is  'Watertown.'  "     He  then  stated  that  to  test  our  theory  he 


86  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

resorted  to  the  continuous  association  method  a  la  Freud  and 
there  came  to  his  mind  first,  Waddling,  which  he  at  once 
recognized  as  incorrect;  the  next  associations  were:  "You 
are  making  a  pun, — she  is  indeed  far  from  Waddling." 
Here  he  interpolated  the  little  remark  that  he  always  had  the 
bad  habit  of  making  puns  of  persons'  names,  but,  he  con- 
tinued, he  was  glad  to  say  that  he  was  gradually  growing  out 
of  it.  Then  he  thought  of  "Waddington"  and  after  giving 
about  ten  associations,  he  said:  "You  see  from  my 
associations  that  there  is  nothing  painful  or  disagreeable 
connected  with  this  name."  When  my  turn  came  to  answer, 
I  first  made  it  clear  that  he  did  not  associate  long  enough, 
for  it  often  takes  us  hours  to  analyze  a  name.  Then 
I  asked  his  permission  to  take  advantage  of  some  remarks 
that  he  made  and  to  make  some  impromptu  analysis.  In 
the  first  place,  he  informed  us  that  he  has  the  bad  habit  of 
forgetting  all  proper  names.  Though  it  is  well  known  that 
we  do  not,  as  a  rule,  remember  all  names  heard,  nevertheless, 
when  we  meet  some  striking  or  important  personality  with 
whom  we  are  impressed  we  almost  invariably  remember  his 
name.  Hence  when  a  person  asserts  that  he  forgets  all 
names,  the  only  conclusion  is  that  he  finds  no  one  in  the 
world  of  sufficient  importance  to  play  a  role  in  his  life. 
This,  I  continued,  was  confirmed  by  the  professor's  remark 
that  he  had  the  bad  habit  of  making  puns  of  proper  names, 
for  here  again  we  do  this  only  with  names  of  people  for 
whom  we  have  little  regard.  It  is  commonly  observed 
among  young  boys  and  very  intimate  adults.  Nevertheless 
he  showed  good  psychological  insight  as  he  made  an  effort 
to  overcome  it,  realizing  that  it  was  wrong.  I  am  glad  to 
say  that  the  professor  did  not  take  my  explanation  amiss. 

We  find  also  the  element  of  the  unpleasant  and  disagree- 
able at  the  root  of  all  deliberate  changing  of  names.  Note 
some  instances.     There  was  a  business  firm  in  New  York 


PSYCHOPATHOLOGY  OF  EVERY-DAY  LIFE      87 

that  was  called  "Yvel  Jewelry  Co."  After  a  little  thought, 
I  realized  that  as  its  place  of  business  was  on  Broadway, 
"Yvel"  was  preferable  to  "Levy."  And  so,  too,  when  you 
see  the  name  Honce  and  are  quite  sure  that  it  is  not  Irish 
or  Scandinavian,  reflect  a  little  and  you  will  find  that  it  is 
Cohen.  There  was  a  club  here  in  the  city  that  went  under 
the  peculiar  denomination  of  the  "Sesrun;"  it  used  to  baffle 
me  before  I  became  a  Freudian ;  now  I  read  it  backward  and 
know  that  it  is  the  "Nurses'  "  club.  It  is  said  that  the 
Damrosch  family  in  New  York  was  originally  "Rothkopf," 
red-head,  but  as  the  latter  was  not  quite  euphonious, 
it  was  translated  into  original  classical  Hebrew.  During 
the  World  War  particularly,  it  was  quite  a  common  thing 
to  change  foreign  names  and  I  consider  such  a  practice 
advisable  and  justified.  It  is  undoubtedly  highly  desirable 
that  we  enter  as  far  as  possible  into  complete  harmony  with 
our  environment,  and  I  heartily  disagree  with  the  famous 
judge  who  did  not  approve  of  changing  the  name  Beneditsky 
to  Benedict,  for  instance.  It  seems  to  me  that  he  showed  a 
distinct  lack  of  psychological  insight.  It  is  quite  remarkable 
to  observe  that  after  going  through  this  Americanization 
process  the  new  name  still  shows  its  old  origin.  We  have 
Hearst  for  Hirsch,  Redstone  for  Rothstein,  etc.  The 
motive  in  changing  the  name  is  undoubtedly  to  eradicate  the 
painful  or  disagreeable  element  that  has  become  attached  to 
it. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  among  primitive  people, 
names  are  often  changed  on  religious  grounds.  In  one  of 
Ibanez's  short  stories,  the  author  refers  to  the  practice,  com- 
mon among  Jews,  of  changing  a  sick  child's  name ;  the  little 
girl's  name  in  the  story  is  changed  from  Bona  Hora  to  Luna ; 
the  thought  is  that  the  angel  of  death  will  thus  be  unable  to 
find  it.    As  you  see,  it  is  the  same  mechanism;  there  is 


88  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

fundamentally  something  painful  and  disagreeable  connected 
with  the  name. 

I  have  recently  learned  from  a  work  by  Capt.  Bodeson 
that  the  same  practice  is  found  also  among  some  tribes  in 
Indo-China.  When  a  child  is  born  among  some  of  the 
savages  in  Indo-China  that  appears  to  be  weak  and  sickly, 
they  call  it  by  some  such  name  as  "Bat,"  "Distress"  or 
"Agony;"  if  it  is  fair  and  pudgy  they  may  call  it  "Peace" 
or  "Gold"  or  "Flower."  Whenever  a  child  outlived  one 
or  the  other  attribute  they  changed  the  name  accordingly. 
That  is  why  historians  sometimes  find  in  documentary  evi- 
dence names  like  Typhus  I.,  Scarlet  II.,  Cholera  I.  and  the 
like.  In  brief,  primitive  people  in  history  confirm  our 
views  by  evincing  the  same  mechanism  underlying  the  giving 
and  changing  of  names  such  as  we  find  to-day  in  the 
examples  that  we  have  already  noted. 

I  have  given  you  some  illustrations  of  how  the  unconscious 
mental  activity  manifests  itself  in  the  forgetting  of  names. 
There  are  also  other  mistakes  that  we  commonly  make  in 
reading,  writing  and  talking  of  no  less  interesting  character, 
and  it  may  perhaps  be  advisable  to  dwell  on  them  for  a  little 
while  so  that  you  may  thus  get  a  little  more  insight  into  the 
deeper  significance  of  these  unconscious  psychic  manifesta- 
tions. 

One  of  my  patients  related  to  me  the  following  experience: 
He  knew  a  young  lady  from  his  earliest  childhood  and  was 
i.apseH  deeply  in  love  with  her.     He  never  failed  to  in- 

Beadingr  vite  her,  together  with  her  mother,  to  all  his 
Writing-  collcgc  afifairs.  When  he  graduated,  he  took  up 
engineering  at  Cornell  and  upon  completing  his  course  of 
studies,  he  naturally  invited  them  to  the  commencement 
exercises.  He  wrote  a  very  warm  letter  in  which  he  stated, 
that  he  was  very  sorry  that  his  fraternity  had  no  chapter 


PSYCHOPATHOLOGY  OF  EVERY-DAY  LIFE      89 

house  in  Cornell  and  that  he  was  therefore  compelled  to 
provide  outside  quarters  for  them.  He  continued  as  fol- 
lows: "I  am  sorry  that  I  cannot  offer  you  the  luxurious 
surroundings  of  a  fraternity  home,  but  I  have  engaged  rooms 
at  a  hotel  for  you."  But  instead  of  that  he  wrote:  "I  am 
sorry  that  I  cannot  offer  you  the  luxurious  surroundings  of 
a  maternity  home."  Without  being  aware  of  the  error,  he 
mailed  the  letter.  The  girl's  mother  was  highly  indignant 
over  this  seemingly  brazen  directness,  and  at  once  returned 
it.  He  could  not  understand  what  occurred,  but  with  the 
help  of  his  room-mate,  to  whom  he  showed  the  letter,  the 
mistake  was  quickly  discovered.  He  then  simply  addressed 
a  little  note  to  the  girl  in  which  he  expressed  his  hope  that 
she  did  not  take  the  matter  in  any  ill  spirit,  but  that  she  re- 
garded it  as  merely  a  slip  on  his  part.  At  any  rate,  mother 
and  daughter  came  to  the  commencement.  He  asked  me  to 
tell  him  why  he  made  the  mistake  and  why  the  mother  was 
so  wrought-up  over  it.  What  was  uppermost  on  his  mind 
at  the  time  of  the  incident  was  the  fact  that  he  was  nearing 
the  goal  of  his  ambition,  i.e.,  that  he  would  soon  be  inde- 
pendent as  an  engineer  and  thus  be  in  a  position  to  marry. 
When  he  wrote  maternity,  he  unconsciously  expressed  his 
deep  regret  that  he  was,  as  yet,  not  able  to  enter  upon  matri- 
mony. The  question  why  the  mother  reacted  toward  the 
letter  in  the  manner  she  did  was,  of  course,  a  little  more 
difficult  to  explain.  Though  she  realized  very  well  that  it 
was  essentially  an  error  on  his  part,  she  nevertheless  could 
not  ignore  it  for  the  simple  reason  that  her  mind  was  in  a 
state  of  what  we  may  designate,  "complex  readiness,"  or  as 
it  is  called  by  Bleuler  "complex  Bereifschaft."  It  was  in- 
cumbent on  her  to  appear  innocent  and  deeply  touched, 
though  she  knew  only  too  well  what  the  young  man  meant. 
But  in  this  way  she  only  betrayed  herself  the  more.  That 
is  how  some  apparently  well-meaning  people  betray  their 


90  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

real  state  of  feeling;  they  disclose  their  vulnerable  point  in 
their  eagerness  to  conceal  it. 

I  may  perhaps  make  this  a  little  clearer  to  you  by  an  il- 
lustration. One  of  my  patients  was  having  an  affair  with 
a  woman  of  questionable  character  and  I  urged  him  to  drop 
it;  I  maintained  with  good  reason  that  she  was  not  faithful 
to  him.  He  was  loath,  however,  to  do  so,  but  intimated  that 
he  thought  I  was  right  and  that  if  he  himself  had  proof  of 
it,  he  would  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  her.  One  eve- 
ning while  they  were  both  passing  a  certain  hotel  in  New 
York,  she  paused  and  asked  him  to  tell  her  what  sort  of  place 
it  was.  He  felt  embarrassed,  for  it  was  difficult  for  him  to 
answer  the  question,  as  it  was  distinctly  a  place  of  ill-repute. 
When  he  asked  me  to  tell  him  its  significance,  I  stated  that, 
in  all  probability,  she  knows  all  about  the  hotel  and  frequents 
it  herself  and  that  in  order  to  throw  him  off  his  guard  she 
was  constrained  to  inquire  about  it  so  that  she  may  thus 
appear  entirely  ignorant  on  the  matter.  He  was  skeptical 
and  replied  dryly:  "That's  all  theory."  A  few  weeks  later 
he  had  an  appointment  with  her  in  the  lobby  of  a  New  York 
hotel;  after  waiting  for  her  a  while,  he  was  paged  and  in- 
formed that  she  could  not  meet  him,  as  she  had  company  at 
home  whom  she  could  leave  under  no  circumstances.  He 
was  disappointed.  It  was  raining  and  dreary,  and  feeling 
depressed  he  drifted  into  that  same  hotel  about  which  she 
questioned  him.  He  took  a  few  drinks,  and  as  he  was 
standing  there  at  the  bar,  chatting  with  the  bar-tender,  he 
presently  saw  the  elevator  descending  and  who,  to  his  great 
surprise,  should  step  out  of  it  but  his  young  lady  and  another 
man.  That,  of  course,  closed  the  whole  affair.  So,  as  you 
see,  she  had  a  complex  readiness,  and  though  there  was  not 
the  faintest  possibility  of  his  suspecting  her  when  they  passed 
the  hotel,  she  neverthless  suspected  herself,  and  perforce,  in- 


PSYCHOPATHOLOGY  OF  EVERY-DAY  LIFE      91 

directly  and  unwittingly  expressed  the  suspicion  that  was 
on  her  mind. 

Here  is  a  mistake  in  talking  related  to  me  by  one  of  my 
patients.  She  was  present  at  an  evening  dance  that  con- 
tinued until  about  eleven  p.m.,  when  everybody,  of  course, 
expected  a  more  or  less  substantial  repast.  Instead,  just 
sandwiches  and  lemonade  were  served,  and  the  disappoint- 
ment was  as  keen  as  it  was  general.  It  was  at  the  time  that 
Mr.  Roosevelt  was  running  for  president;  the  guests  were 
discussing  politics  with  the  host,  when  one  of  them,  an 
ardent  admirer  of  the  Colonel,  wished  to  say :  "There  is  one 
fine  thing  about  Teddy,  he  always  gives  you  a  square  deal." 
Instead  of  that,  he  said:  "There  is  one  fine  thing  about 
Teddy,  he  always  gives  you  a  square  meal."  All  were  em- 
barrassed but  understood  each  other  quite  well. 

Slips  of  this  nature  occur  all  the  time.  I  was  speaking 
once  to  a  French  patient,  who  had  the  annoying  habit  of 
wandering  from  the  subject,  meandering,  then  stopping  and 
wasting  a  considerable  amount  of  time.  On  one  occasion  I 
wanted  to  tell  her  to  "go  on,"  "avant,"  but  instead  I  said, 
"good-by,"  "au  revoir."   - 

I  have  found  myself  making  similar  mistakes  at  various 
times.  One  of  my  patients  who  was  very  paranoid,  really 
insane,  consulted  me  about  her  condition  and  I  advised  her 
to  go  voluntarily  into  a  hospital.  She  was  quite  willing  to  do 
so,  but  claimed  that  she  had  some  complication  that  made 
such  a  step  rather  difficult.  She  had  an  apartment  with  some 
friends  who  would  not  let  her  go.  I  became  impatient  and 
said  to  her :  "You  are  perfectly  incompetent  to  take  care 
of  your  own  affair."     I  wanted  to  say  "competent." 

Another  one  of  my  patients,  a  young  lady,  had  a  bad 
habit  of  repeatedly  using  her  powder  puff  in  my  office.  I 
got  tired  of  it  in  time  and  remarked  that  it  must  be  some 
sort  of  symbolic  action  on  her  part.     One  day  she  came  and 


92  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

I  noticed  that  she  did  not  have  her  powder  puff  with  her; 
she  seemed  to  be  rather  dull  and  hstless,  and  I  remarked: 
"You  don't  seem  to  have  brought  along  your  mental 
pounder."  I  meant  to  say,  "your  mental  power."  I  really 
thought  she  could  do  so  very  much  better  with  the  aid  of  her 
powder  puff. 

Another  young  lady  whom  I  treated  was  unusually  liberal 
and  lavish  in  the  use  of  cosmetics.  I  had  advised  her  to  drop 
a  certain  young  man;  following  her  meeting  with  him  she 
came  for  a  consultation.  I  was  naturally  very  much  in- 
terested to  know  what  had  occurred,  and  I  asked  at  once: 
"How  did  you  make  upf"  I  meant  to  ask:  "How  did  you 
make  oiitf" 

I  advised  a  woman  against  an  amour  she  carried  on  with 
a  certain  man  who  lived  in  Baltimore.  She  promised  me  that 
she  would  never  see  him  again.  One  day  she  told  me  that  she 
was  planning  a  little  trip  to  Washington,  and  in  the  course 
of  the  conversation  remarked,  "I  am  going  to  do  this,  if  my 
pleasant  plan  is  successful."  She  wanted  to  say  "present" 
plan.  "You  are  anticipating  very  great  pleasure  in  seeing 
again  Mr.  S."  I  added.  "Oh,  well,  Doctor,  you  know  I  am 
sick  and  tired  of  not  seeing  him,"  she  replied. 

I  once  wrote  a  prescription  for  an  elderly  lady.  My  re- 
marks were:  "I  am  giving  you  thirty  pills;  I  want  you  to 
take  one  three  times  a  day  after  meals."  Upon  which  she 
said,  "Doctor,  don't  give  me  big  bills,  because  I  can't  swallow 
them."  Thereupon  I  asked  her  in  a  matter  of  fact  way 
whether  she  thought  I  was  overcharging  her.  "Oh,  yes, 
Doctor,  I  really  meant  to  talk  to  you  about  it ;  I  can't  afford 
to  come  to  you,"  she  replied.  Of  course  she  had  no  idea 
why  I  put  the  question,  and  had  I  not  taken  her  mistake  as 
an  indication  of  her  dissatisfaction  with  my  charges,  she 
probably  would  have  left  me. 

A  woman  was  given  a  telephone  number  by  her  friend 


PSYCHOPATHOLOGY  OF  EVERY-DAY  LIFE      93 

who  suggested  that  she  write  it  down  lest  she  forget  it.  "Oh, 
no,  I  do  not  have  to  write  it  down,  it  is  simple,  number  1740; 
I  can  easily  remember  it  by  saying,  seventeen  which  I  am 
sorry  I'm  not,  and  forty  which  I  regret  very  much  I  am," 
She  nevertheless  made  sure  and  jotted  it  down.  The  next 
time  she  had  occasion  to  call  up  her  friend,  she  asked  her 
maid  to  get  the  number  for  her,  but  when  she  was  connected 
she  found  that  she  did  not  have  the  right  person.  She  was 
cross  and  fretful,  but  it  was  soon  discovered  that  instead  of 
1740  she  gave  the  number  1704.  Here,  as  you  see,  her  mis- 
take revealed  her  aversion  for  the  number  forty,  and,  on  that 
account,  therefore,  she  forgot  it. 

Mr.  J.  wished  to  call  648  Convent,  but  instead,  called  648 
Convict.  The  telephone  operator,  of  course,  insisted  that 
he  had  the  wrong  exchange.  He  was  calling  up  one  of  the 
commissioners  of  the  state  prison,  in  regard  to  a  convict. 

A  friend  of  mine,  a  writer,  in  speaking  about  a  certain 
book  he  was  reading,  observed :  "This  is  the  best  book  I 
have  ever  written."  He  wished  to  say:  "This  is  the  best 
book  that  I  have  ever  read."  The  inference  is  that  it  was 
such  an  excellent  book  that  he  wished  to  be  the  author  of  it. 

A  woman  who  reproached  herself  for  various  sexual 
transgressions  asked  me  once  whether  I  had  seen  a  play 
called  the  "Everlasting  Madonna?"  I  told  her  that  as  far 
as  I  knew  there  was  no  such  play  on  the  stage  at  that  time. 
"You  mean,  perhaps,  'The  Eternal  Magdalene,' "  I  said. 
She  saw  her  mistake  at  once. 

A  pregnant  woman  came  into  a  department  store  and 
wished  to  ask  for  a  linen  called  "fruit  of  the  loom."  In- 
stead, she  asked  for  "fruit  of  the  womb." 

Here  is  an  interesting  lapse  of  memory  related  to  me  by  a 
friend:  "During  the  trouble  with  the  St.  Louis  and  San 
Francisco  R.  R.,  the  bonds  of  the  company  fell  in  value, 
and  as  I  had  a  few  of  them  I  was  very  much  disturbed. 


94  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

When  I  expressed  my  fears  to  an  acquaintance,  he  explained 
to  me  that  I  had  no  reason  to  worry  about  the  4%  bonds  but 
that  the  5%  ones  were  now  hardly  worth  half  their  value. 
As  I  did  not  know  which  I  had,  I  immediately  hastened  to 
the  safe  deposit  vault  to  find  out.  I  requested  the  clerk  to 
open  the  outer  locker  of  box  170  in  which  I  kept  my  bonds 
and  other  valuable  papers.  When  he  unlocked  it,  I  in- 
serted my  own  key  into  the  box,  but  try  as  I  would,  I  could 
not  open  it ;  the  key  did  not  seem  to  fit.  I  called  the  clerk, 
and  after  a  number  of  unsuccessful  attempts,  he  asked  me 
whether  I  was  sure  that  my  box  number  was  170.  I  was 
very  positive  that  the  number  was  correct  and  was  even 
angry  with  him  for  questioning  me,  for  I  had  the  box  for  the 
last  ten  years.  I  suggested  that  the  key  was  perhaps  bent; 
and  he  tried  it  with  the  duplicate  key,  but  with  no  success. 
He  finally  decided  to  verify  the  number  in  the  records  of  the 
bank,  and  what  was  my  surprise  when  he  came  back  and  told 
me  that  it  was  175  and  not  170 !"  As  you  see,  he  was  afraid 
that  his  bonds  were  the  5%  issue;  and  as  he  had  now  good 
reason  to  dislike  the  number  five,  he  immediately  pushed  it 
into  the  unconscious. 

The  following  is  a  striking  example  of  lapse  in  talking 
that  came  to  my  attention  recently:  A  very  methodical 
gentleman  who  was  wont  to  make  many  Sunday  afternoon 
calls  was  quite  assiduously  attending  to  this  pleasant  function 
one  Sunday,  when,  as  he  was  about  to  go  home,  he  suddenly 
recalled  a  lady  friend,  living  not  far  from  his  own  house,  and 
in  his  accustomed  punctiliousness,  he  decided  to  pay  her 
his  last  visit.  He  expected  to  stay  a  few  minutes,  when  to 
his  great  dismay,  the  young  lady,  knowing  quite  well  that  he 
was  of  a  musical  temperament,  declared  very  enthusiastic- 
ally: "I  must  play  something  for  you."  Without  re- 
monstrance, she  at  once  made  for  the  piano  and  began  to  play. 
She  played  and  played  to  the  great  despair  of  the  gentleman 


PSYCHOPATHOLOGY  OF  EVERY-DAY  LIFE      95 

who  was  very  anxious  to  get  home  to  dress  for  dinner,  for 
one  thing,  and  then,  too,  because  he  suffered  from  extreme 
discomfort  of  a  tense  bladder.  Finally,  to  his  great  relief, 
the  young  lady  stopped  playing,  remarking  quite  proudly: 
"You  know  it  took  me  a  couple  of  weeks  to  memorize  this." 
In  his  wonted  urbanity,  he  wished  to  say,  "Yes,  you  played 
it  excellently  and  I  can  see  that  it  is  a  very  difficult  piece  to 
play,"  but  instead  of  that  he  said :  "Yes,  you  played  it  ex- 
cellently and  I  can  see  that  it  is  a  very  difficult  place  to  .  .  ." 
Here  the  gentleman's  state  of  mind,  the  discomfort  of  a  full 
bladder,  the  desire  to  get  home  betrayed  itself  in  his  lapsus 
linguae. 

In  the  first  edition  of  my  book  "Psychoanalysis"  there 
was  a  mistake  in  spelling  about  which  I  knew  nothing  until 
the  second  edition  was  published,  when  I  received  two  letters 
from  different  people  asking  me  to  account  for  the  misspelled 
word  "omission."  It  was  written  with  double  "m,"  thus: 
"ommission."  When  I  looked  into  the  matter  I  found  that 
the  mistake  was  also  present  in  the  first  edition,  which  ap- 
peared in  191 2,  and  for  which  I  was  absolutely  entirely  re- 
sponsible. The  second  edition,  however,  that  came  out  a 
few  years  later,  was  read  by  a  professional  proofreader  who 
as  you  know,  is  just  an  objective  reading  agent  and  so  the 
responsibility  for  the  error  lay  entirely  with  him.  Now  I 
thought  to  myself :  "The  stenographer,  the  compositor,  the 
proofreaders  and  myself  have  made  the  same  mistake. 
Why  ?"  To  understand  the  reason  for  it,  you  must  know  in 
what  connection  the  word  occurred.  I  quoted  in  the  book 
a  mistake  that  was  made  in  the  so  called  "Wicked  Bible," 
printed  in  1631,  where  instead  of  "Thou  shalt  not  commit 
adultery"  it  stated,  "Thou  shalt  commit  adultery."  The 
printer  was  fined  and  the  Bible  was  confiscated ;  I  added  that 
the  publisher  had  to  pay  a  large  sum  of  money  for  this 
"ommission."    The  explanation  is  that  as  there  was  a  fine 


96  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

in  this  case  for  an  omission,  my  publisher  gave  me  uncon- 
sciously an  additional  "m"  for  good  measure,  so  to  say.  It 
was  a  purposeful,  unconscious  oversight  on  the  part  of  every 
one  who  read  the  episode. 

A  Hartford,  Conn.,  paper  a  few  years  ago  made  the  error 
which  gave  rise  to  a  great  deal  of  animosity.  It  wished  to  say 
about  a  certain  congressman  that  "it  is  unfortunate  that  Mr. 
H.  G.  is  no  longer  a  member  of  Congress."  Instead  it  stated 
that  "it  is  fortunate  that  INIr.  H.  G.  is  no  longer  a  member  of 
Congress."  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  person  who  made  the 
mistake  really  thought  that  it  was  fortunate  that  Mr.  H.  G. 
was  no  longer  in  Congress. 

I  reported  a  case  of  a  newly  married  woman  who,  much  to 
her  displeasure,  was  compelled  to  typewrite  her  husband's 
manuscripts.  Instead  of  going  to  church  one  Sunday  morn- 
ing, she  had  to  sit  there  at  the  typewriter  and  her  work  was 
full  of  errors  like  these, — parson  for  person,  bridle  for 
bridal.  You  see  what  was  on  her  mind.  She  simply  gave 
vent  to  her  real  thoughts:  "I  am  a  bride  and  instead  of 
taking  it  easy  and  going  to  church  on  Sunday  morning,  I  am 
harnessed  and  have  to  work  here." 

A  doctor  once  asked  me  to  render  him  a  favor  and  intro- 
duce a  certain  Mr.  K.  to  him.  I  wrote  him,  saying :  "I  am 
very  glad  to  do  so,  as  Mr.  K.  had  considerable  experience 
inn  this  matter."  He  returned  the  letter  with  the  request 
that  I  explain  to  him  why  I  wrote  "inn"  and  not  "in."  Mr. 
K.  was  very  much  addicted  to  alcohol  and  was  always  to  be 
found  in  a  certain  inn  which  I  knew  very  well  and  which  I 
associated  in  my  mind  with  a  particular  experience  that  oc- 
curred there  in  connection  with  him. 

Some  years  ago  I  received  the  following :  "Dear  Doctor : 
After  reading  your  valuable  book  'Psychoanalysis'  I  beg  to 
enclose  a  cutting  from  the  New  York  Times  dated  30  April 
191 6  containing  the  following  passage  which  might  interest 


PSYCHOPATHOLOGY  OF  EVERY-DAY  LIFE      97 

you:  'Declaring  that  international  law  is  international 
mortality,  Judge  Gray  of  Delaware  expressed  belief  etc.* 
Undoubtedly  Judge  Gray  said  morality,  meaning  that  inter- 
national law  is  intended  for  international  welfare  and  happi- 
ness; however,  the  Times'  reporter  or  printer  unconsciously 
manifested  by  his  mistake  that  international  law  as  it  stands 
to-day  does  not  bring  happiness  and  welfare  to  mankind 
(morality)  but  destruction  and  misery  (mortality).  This 
nicely  bears  out  your  contention  that  no  mistake  is  utterly 
unintentional." 

Note  the  following  little  slip :  A  woman  writing  to  an  ac- 
quaintance asking  her  for  a  loan  of  $300.00  said,  among 
other  things :  "I  am  rolling  on  you  as  a  friend,"  instead  of 
"I  am  relying  on  you  as  a  friend." 

There  are  also  numerous  lapses  in  reading  that  we  fre- 
quently make.  Let  me  give  you  an  example.  When  on 
board  a  ship  I  once  met  a  gentleman  who  was  bitterly  in- 
censed at  doctors.  We  managed  to  get  along  very  well  to- 
gether, but  every  time  he  had  the  opportunity  to  knock  the 
profession,  he  took  full  advantage  of  it.  One  day  he  im- 
parted to  me  this  bit  of  information  with  no  little  gusto: — 
"I  just  read  a  name  of  a  doctor  and  it  is  the  most  appro- 
priate name  I  have  ever  met;  it  is  Slayer."  The  name 
strongly  appealed  to  him.  I  asked  him  to  show  me  the 
magazine  where  he  read  it  and  I  soon  discovered  that  it  was 
"Salyer."  In  his  complex  readiness,  he  unconsciously  dis- 
torted the  name  to  suit  his  ov/n  feelings. 

Besides  the  lapses  that  we  have  discussed,  there  are  also 
symbolic  actions  which  a  person  performs  unconsciously  and 
automatically  and   which   he   considers   entirely 
accidental.      Depending   upon   their   mechanism     symtoUo 
they  are  either  simple  or  complicated  and  mani- 
fest themselves  in  such  unconscious  mannerisms  as  playing 


98  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

with  one's  mustache,  jingling  of  coins  in  one's  pocket, 
disarranging  or  arranging  of  one's  clothes.  These  acts 
always  conceal  a  definite  meaning,  though  it  is  a  common 
observation  that  when  people  are  questioned  about  them, 
they  usually  shrug  their  shoulders  more  or  less  indiffer- 
ently and  assure  you  that  they  were  just  playing.  They 
are  instructive  to  the  physician  who  often  gathers  from 
them  many  valuable  hints  for  the  interpretation  of  symp- 
toms ;  to  the  student  of  human  nature  they  are  replete 
with  human  interest,  and  writers  like  Dickens  and  Thack- 
eray have  described  them  quite  at  length  and  with  con- 
siderable insight.  The  common  observation  that  "actions 
speak  louder  than  words"  contains  a  deeper  meaning  than  we 
generally  suppose.  An  individual  has  two  languages  in 
which  he  expresses  himself,  one  of  which  consists  of  these 
little  actions  of  which  he  is  entirely  unaware.  I  recall  a 
woman,  for  instance,  who  would  invariably  rub  her  hands 
on  her  lap  in  a  characteristic  fashion  whenever  she  came  to 
some  matter  that  she  did  not  wish  to  dwell  on.  In  time 
I  learned  in  that  way  just  what  she  wished  to  disclose,  and 
when  I  finished  for  her  what  she  had  begun  to  say,  she  would 
add,  "Of  course  you  know  it,  that's  why  I  did  not  want  to 
talk  about  it."  As  Freud  has  so  aptly  put  it,  "When  the  lips 
are  mute,  the  fingers  talk." 

Some  of  these  symbolic  actions  are,  of  course,  very  mucli 
more  complex.  A  young  lady,  for  instance,  whom  I  have 
known,  was  unfortunate  enough  not  to  have  good  looks.  It 
was  one  of  the  reasons  why  she  was  nervous.  I  tried  hard 
to  console  her,  and  reminded  her  of  Dostoyevski's  contention 
that  there  is  no  woman  that  is  ugly.  She  had  no  friends  and 
was  morose  and  depressed.  It  was  at  the  time  of  the 
European  war  and  one  day  she  informed  me  that  she  had 
decided  to  go  to  France.  When  I  asked  her  what  she  was 
going  to  do  there,  I  learned  that  she  was  going  to  nurse 


PSYCHOPATHOLOGY  OF  EVERY-DAY  LIFE      99 

blind  soldiers.  You  observe  here  the  force  of  the  uncon- 
scious, though  she  had  no  idea,  of  course,  of  the  deeper 
significance  of  her  decision. 

One  of  my  patients  came  to  me  one  morning  and  I  noticed 
that  he  was  very  irritable.  When  I  inquired  what  had  oc- 
curred, he  at  first  declined  to  talk,  but  finally  told  me  that  he 
had  just  quarrelled  v^ith  his  best  friend  because  of  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  latter  asked  him  to  do  something.  In- 
stead of  "Please  hang  up  my  coat,  John"  his  friend,  he 
went  on  to  say,  just  said,  "Hang  up  my  coat,"  and  he  felt 
that  he  should  have  been  more  polite.  Now  we  must  re- 
member that  whenever  we  find  too  much  emotivity  as- 
sociated with  an  idea,  there  must  of  necessity  be  a  good 
reason  for  it.  To  discover  it  we  must  track  the  emotion  to 
its  hidden  sources.  Analysis  discovered  that  the  patient 
happened  to  read  in  his  morning's  paper  about  a  man  who 
committed  suicide  by  hanging  himself ;  that  brought  back  to 
his  mind  the  skeleton  of  a  similar  experience  in  his  'Own 
family,  which  I  may  say  in  passing,  he  did  not  disclose  to  me 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  had  been  consulting  me  for  a  few 
months.  He  was  altogether  unconscious  of  the  family  mis- 
fortune when  he  was  bid  to  hang  up  his  friend's  coat  but  the 
word  "hang"  soon  touched  a  sensitive  spot  in  his  psychic 
life,  it  struck  a  complex,  and  there  at  once  followed  a  flow 
of  repressed  emotion.  As  you  may  see,  the  emotion  at- 
tached itself  to  altogether  exogenous  psychic  material,  it  was 
related  to  his  friend's  innocent  remark  only  in  respect  of  the 
mere  association  of  the  word  "hang." 

Losing  is  another  interesting  symbolic  action.  I  know  I 
will  surprise  a  good  many  of  you  when  I  make  the  broad 
statement  that  we  lose  nothing  that  we  really  want.  It  is 
nevertheless  true.  No  one  likes  to  carry  an  umbrella  or  wear 
rubbers,  and  that  is  why  such  things  are  so  often  lost.  Some- 
times you  leave  or  forget  to  take  an  article  in  a  certain 


loo  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

place;  this  may  mean  one  of  the  two  things;  either  that 
you  would  like  to  come  back  to  the  place,  in  which  case  the 
article  will  serve  as  an  excuse  for  your  return,  or  that  you 
know  that  it  is  quite  safe  there.  A  young  girl  told  me 
recently  that  a  young  man  asked  her  to  keep  his  diploma  for 
him.  I  remarked  that  she  would  have  to  be  careful,  and  no 
mistake,  the  inevitable  happened:  the  young  man  showed 
symbolically  exactly  where  he  wished  to  be.  A  man  con- 
sulted me  once,  who  carried  a  big,  heavy  overcoat^on  his^arm. 
When  he  left  my  office,  he  forgot  to  take  it  and  I  called  him 
back.  Upon  returning  it  occurred  to  him  to  inquire  about 
something  else  he  was  anxious  to  know.  When  I  was  done, 
he  .left,  again  forgetting  to  take  his  coat,  and  when  I  now 
called'him  back  for  the  second  time,  he  exclaimed :  "Damn 
my  father-in-law,  I  have  to  carry  this  coat  to  his  office." 
I  have  regularly  quite  a  collection  of  these  forgotten  articles 
in  my  office;  just  at  present  I  have  among  other  things,  a 
half  dozen  gloves,  a  number  of  pairs  of  rubbers,  and  the 
lining  from  a  man's  hat. 

Mr.  M.,  a  landscape  gardener,  lost  some  beautiful  phottj- 
graphs  while  I  was  with  him  on  a  train.  Some  time  later  I 
met  the  man  who  originally  introduced  me  to  him  and  I 
commented  on  the  loss.  "Oh,  isn't  that  funny,"  he  im- 
mediately interposed,  "he  lost  them  when  he  was  with  me 
also."  I  then  had  good  reason  to  suspect  that  the  photo- 
graphs were  not  his  own.  The  next  time  I  saw  Mr.  M. 
I  asked  him  whether  they  were  really  his  own  genuine  work 
and  he  answered,  "No,  not  exactly  my  work,  because  the 
people  don't  allow  me  to  take  a  photograph  of  the  work  I 
had  done  on  their  estate,  but  they  are  almost  the  same  as 
mine."  He  was  a  conscientious  man  and  continued  to  lose 
them  because  he  suffered  from  qualms  of  conscience. 

Many  times  we  lose  things  because  we  wish  to  make  some 
sort  of  sacrifice.    I  have  reported  the  case  of  a  young  woman. 


PSYCHOPATHOLOGY  OF  EVERY-DAY  LIFE     loi 

who,  while  going  shopping  one  day,  threw  away  a  ten  dollar 
bill  and  only  upon  reaching  the  department  store  did  she 
realize  what  she  had  done.  She  was  a  very  ardent  church 
member  before  she  married,  and  was  accustomed  to  donate 
liberally  to  the  church.  When  she  married,  her  husband, 
who  was  a  bit  tight,  explained  that  inasmuch  as  times  were 
rather  hard,  she  had  better  not  make  any  further  contribu- 
tions for  the  present.  The  ten  dollars  was  the  sum  she  was 
wont  to  give  to  the  church  in  the  past.  When  she  threw  it 
away,  she  thought  unconsciously,  "He  does  not  permit  me 
to  donate  it  to  the  church,  so  that  I'll  just  let  some  one  find 
it  and  keep  it." 

Losing  keys  has  also  a  definite  symbolic  import.  I  now 
recall  the  case  of  a  woman  at  a  western  hotel  who  had  the 
reputation  of  perpetually  losing  the  key  to  her  room;  it 
seemed  that  every  time  she  took  the  key  out  of  the  door,  she 
lost  it.  On  the  other  hand,  she  had  the  habit  of  not  only 
locking  her  room,  but  also  of  barring  the  door  with  a  trunk 
or  a  chififonier  so  that  it  was  thus  locked  the  more  safely. 
How  are  we  to  explain  this  peculiar  condition?  Analysis 
reveals  that  her  losing  the  keys  expresses  her  unconscious 
desire  to  have  her  room  open  all  the  time.  But  if  that  is  so, 
why  did  she  bar  the  door?  Consciously,  no  doubt,  she  de- 
sired to  have  the  door  closed,  but  unconsciously  there  was  a 
different  set  of  forces  operating.  The  motive  that  induced 
her  to  lose  the  keys  is  of  such  a  nature  as  to  repel  her  in 
conscious  life.  She  was  a  young  woman  who  had  been 
separated  from  her  husband,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  she 
was  unconsciously  disturbed  by  sex. 

We  may  observe  this  same  mechanism  in  the  morbid  fear 
of  burglars.  You  may  perhaps  know  that  a  great  many 
women,  as  well  as  some  men,  are  in  mortal  dread  of  burglars ; 
particularly  does  this  hold  true  of  old  maids.  One  of  my 
patients  of  this  type  was  a  woman  who  resided  in  one  of  the 


I02  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

finest  apartment  houses  in  New  York.  Though  she  had  a 
room  right  between  her  father's  and  brother's,  she  was  never- 
theless always  afraid ;  it  was  a  common  practice  for  her,  upon 
retiring,  to  look  very  carefully  under  the  bed  to  make  sure 
that  no  unwelcome  stranger  had  perchance  surreptitiously 
entered.  As  I  have  already  said  previously,  whenever  we 
see  such  marked  emotivity,  we  must  pause  and  ask  ourselves 
what  is  its  source.  This  woman  herself  realized  how  absurd 
was  her  fear.  Indeed,  when  she  came  to  me  she  said: 
"Doctor,  you  don't  have  to  tell  me  that  it  is  impossible  for 
a  burglar  to  get  into  my  room,  because  I  know  that  too  well 
myself,  but  despite  all  that,  I  am  afraid."  We  know  that 
repressed  desire  is  always  at  the  root  of  a  disproportionate 
amount  of  fear;  there  is  repressed  libido  at  the  basis  of  a 
marked  emotivity.  Language  has  recognized  this  condition, 
when  it  associates  the  word  "panic"  with  the  sensual  God, 
Pan.  You  can  well  imagine  how  a  woman  of  her  age,  who 
has  been  brought  up  very  prudishly,  will  repress  a  sexual 
thought  or  fancy  the  moment  it  enters  her  consciousness. 
But  the  "cosmic"  sex  energy  is  there  and  it  is  forever  striv- 
ing to  come  to  the  surface,  much  as  her  whole  being  revolts 
against  it.  The  mind,  under  the  circumstances,  makes  an 
interesting  detour ;  the  hidden  wish  to  have  a  man  illicitly  in 
the  bed  chamber  expresses  itself  in  the  fear  of  an  intruding 
burglar. 

In  "collections"  we  see  another  common  symbolic  action. 
I  am  not  referring  to  the  collections  of  books,  paintings  and 
coueotiona  the  like,  engaged  in  by  so  called  professional  col- 
lectors. I  am  interested  at  present  only  in  those  collections 
that  people  generally  regard  as  more  or  less  peculiar.  I 
have  known  a  man,  for  instance,  who  collected  stick  pins. 
One  woman  collected  pictures  of  pigs ;  another  candlesticks. 
One  lady  had  a  few  hundred  of  all  kinds  of  pocketbooks 


PSYCHOPATHOLOGY  OF  EVERY-DAY  LIFE    103 

which  she  guarded  most  jealously ;  her  daughter,  who  was  a 
patient  of  mine,  informed  me  that  when  she  wanted  one,  she 
had  to  fight  with  her  mother  for  weeks  before  she  could 
have  it.  A  man  came  to  my  attention  who  collected  those 
collar  buttons  that  one  finds  in  newly  laundered  shirts;  he 
requested  all  his  friends  to  save  them  for  him;  he  would 
most  industriously  assort  them  in  boxes.  One  lady  collected 
stones,  not  from  the  wall  of  Jerusalem  or  Rome,  to  be  sure, 
but  promiscuously,  wherever  she  happened  to  stray;  she 
would  assort  and  name  them.  When  I  saw  the  collection  for 
the  first  time  I  thought  she  was  engaged  in  some  definite 
scientific  pursuit,  that  perhaps  the  various  stones  repre- 
sented different  fossils.  A  German  writer  who  investigated 
the  subject  found  that  some  people  collected  the  most  pe- 
culiar things.  The  Countess  Chavan  Narischkin,  for  in- 
stance, paid  enormous  sums  for  bed  pans  from  Marie  An- 
toinette and  Mme.  Pompadour  and  other  celebrities.  A  naval 
officer  collected  uniform  buttons  ;  a  man  collected  corkscrews 
for  thirty  years ;  the  obstetrician  Braun  collected  pubic  hair, 
which  he  skilfully  acquired  while  examining  his  patients. 

The  question  naturally  arises :  "Why  do  people  engage  in 
such  things  ?"  I  may  perhaps  best  answer  this  by  giving  one 
or  two  illustrations.  At  a  meeting  of  a  psychoanalytic 
society  in  Zurich  hospital,  one  of  the  members,  an 
old  bachelor,  once  took  occasion  to  reveal  this  interesting 
bit  of  information :  "Gentlemen,  I  want  to  tell  you  some- 
thing quite  strange.  I  take  my  vacation  every  year  when 
a  certain  fly  is  swarming;  I  want  to  say  that  I  have 
absolutely  no  interest  in  its  scientific  aspects.  But  I 
love  to  catch  the  insect  and  for  about  two  weeks  or  so  I 
gather  it  in  great  numbers  and  then  throw  it  away.  It 
is  my  most  pleasing  pastime."  On  inquiry  it  was  found 
that  the  fly  was  of  the  "lobalia"  species,  designated  in  the 
Swiss  dialect  as  the  "maiden."     This  innocent  little  occu- 


I04  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

pation  was  thus  a  highly  interesting  symbolic  action,  which 
revealed  the  unconscious  thoughts  and  tendencies  of  this 
man;  how  natural  for  this  old  bachelor  to  be  thinking  of 
catching  the  "maiden"  while  he  was  on  his  vacation !  He 
was  a  little  astonished  at  this  bit  of  analysis,  but  he  confessed 
that  he  could  see  no  other  explanation  for  his  hobby.  He 
was  quite  frank.  There  surely  was  a  reason  why  this  man 
did  not  marry ;  and  whatever  were  the  inhibitions  in  his  case, 
he  showed  his  real  motives  by  occupying  himself  in  this  way. 
When  we  take  our  vacation,  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
somewhere  deep  down  in  our  heart  we  think  of  "catching" 
maidens.  It  has  been  observed,  and  very  aptly,  that  most  en- 
gagements take  place  in  summer  resorts,  steamers  and  similar 
places. 

Miss  T.,  a  woman  of  considerable  education  and  refine- 
ment, was  greatly  interested  in  collecting  works  on  mush- 
rooms ;  knowing  that  I  read  foreign  languages,  she  asked  me 
on  one  occasion  to  recommend  to  her  some  books  on  the  sub- 
ject, particularly  those  with  illustrated  cuts  from  German, 
French,  or  Italian  sources.  I  brought  her  some  and  on  in- 
quiring whether  she  had  a  reading  knowledge  of  those 
languages,  I  learned  that  she  was  not  at  all  acquainted  with 
them,  but  that  her  whole  interest  was  centered  in  the  illustra- 
tions. I  knew  very  little  at  the  time  about  matters  of  this 
nature,  and  her  behavior  in  this  regard  seemed  strange  to  me. 
I  learned,  for  instance,  that  on  one  occasion  she  paid  as  much 
as  six  dollars  for  one  German  work.  Some  years  after  I 
had  become  interested  in  Freudian  psychology,  I  had  the  op- 
portunity to  meet  Miss  T.  and  I  took  occasion  to  find  out 
what  was  back  of  her  interest  in  works  on  mushrooms.  On 
inquiring  whether  she  still  collected  cuts  on  the  subject,  she 
replied :  "Oh,  yes,  I  have  quite  a  collection."  I  asked  her  to 
tell  me  how  she  happened  to  begin  her  hobby,  and  she 
merely  replied:     "Well,  I  really  don't  know  how  it  came 


PSYCHOPATHOLOGY  OF  EVERY-DAY  LIFE     105 

about.  I  was  on  my  vacation  in  the  mountains ;  one  night  I 
could  not  fall  asleep,  hard  as  I  tried.  I  arose  very  early  the 
next  morning,  and  walking  out  on  the  lawn,  I  found  some 
mushrooms ;  I  took  them  to  the  cook,  who  fried  them  for  me. 
Since  then  I  was  interested  in  pictures  of  mushrooms." 

What  is  the  significance  of  Miss  T.'s  hobby  ?  In  the  first 
place,  we  know  that  when  a  person  suffers  from  insomnia, 
it  can  be  attributed  to  only  one  of  two  causes,  either  to  some 
organic  disturbance,  such  as  lung  or  heart  trouble,  that  is, 
to  some  definite  organic  pain,  or  to  some  strictly  nervous 
condition.  Most  of  the  nervous  insomnias  are  always  due  to 
a  lack  of  emotional  outlet;  and  people  suffering  from  them 
usually  go  to  bed  and  fancy  and  daydream,  and  thus  are 
unable  to  fall  asleep.  As  Miss  T.  appeared  perfectly 
healthy,  I  concluded  that  she  must  have  experienced  some 
emotional  disturbance  that  night.  When  I  had  explained  to 
her  the  motive  that  prompted  me  to  inquire  into  the  situation, 
she  gave  me  the  following  information:  During  her  vaca- 
tion there  was  a  middle-aged  man,  who  met  her  quite  fre- 
quently and  with  whom  she  would  take  long  walks ;  he  ap- 
parently paid  her  a  great  deal  of  attention.  One  evening 
he  was  a  bit  intoxicated,  and  his  behavior  toward  her  was 
rude  and  suggestive ;  she  left  him  and  returned  to  her  room. 
It  was  following  that  night  that  she  began  to  take  an  in- 
terest in  the  mushroom.  It  is  not  hard  to  surmise  what 
transpired.  His  suggestive  remarks,  disquieting  and  re- 
pelling as  they  were,  aroused  sex  fancies  which  she  could  not 
shake  off  from  her  mind.  Thoughts  of  this  nature  are  in- 
stinctive and  persist  always,  no  matter  how  hard  we  try  to 
banish  them.  Now  if  we  remember  that  certain  types  of 
mushrooms  are  scientifically  designated  as  "phallus,"  which 
means,  penis,  we  may  readily  see  what  it  was  that  uncon- 
sciously attracted  her  attention  to  the  mushroom;  indeed, 
the  very  object  that  so  shocked  her  the  evening  before,  now 


io6  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

unconsciously  acquired  a  tremendous  significance  and  interest 
for  her.  That  is  why  she  continued  to  collect  the  mush- 
room ;  there  was  absolutely  no  scientific  reason  why  she 
should  take  an  interest  in  the  work. 

From  the  above  considerations,  it  is  clearly  seen  that  such 
collections  serve  as  emotional  outlets.  This  is  borne  out  also 
in  the  collections  of  stamps,  birds'  eggs,  or  nests,  that  we 
find  at  the  prepubescent  age.  It  is  then  that  the  emotions  of 
sex  and  love  become  manifest  and  the  child  finds  it  difficult 
to  control  them.  It  is  the  age  when  the  child  undergoes 
marked  psychological  changes;  powerfully  latent  forces  be- 
gin to  manifest  themselves  in  the  psychic  life.  Youth,  as  we 
all  know,  is  then  dissatisfied,  it  often  revolts,  leaving  home 
and  kindred.  Some  children  may  become  very  religious; 
according  to  statistics  from  Evangelists,  most  conversions 
take  place  at  this  age.  The  child  becomes  critical,  he  seems 
to  lose  his  old  regard  for  his  parents ;  and  it  is  perhaps  with 
no  little  degree  of  disappointment  or  even  pain  that  he  be- 
gins to  realize  that  after  all  mother  and  father  are  not  as 
omniscient  and  omnipotent  as  he  supposed.  What  he  really 
craves  for  is  expression  of  the  sexual  emotions  in  the  form 
of  mating.  The  mating  season  begins  at  this  time;  but  as 
this  gross  manifestation  of  sex  must  be  deferred  in  the 
human  being  to  a  later  period,  and  as  we  are  taught  to  repress 
it  from  the  very  beginning,  this  emotional  unrest  and  sexual 
craving  merely  expresses  itself  in  a  vague  groping  for  some- 
thing not  altogether  tangible  or  concrete.  Owing  to  cultural 
forces,  the  real  aim  is  gradually  distorted;  we  have  crying 
spells  among  girls,  and  boys  often  take  an  interest  in  the 
manifest  part  of  sex.  In  the  main,  however,  sex  is  re- 
pressed ;  they  may,  of  course,  occasionally  consult  the  dic- 
tionary about  the  meaning  of  certain  significant  words,  or 
read  suggestive  stories,  or  write  little  things  that  are  lewd. 
The  desire   for  outward  expression  nevertheless  remains; 


PSYCHOPATHOLOGY  OF  EVERY-DAY  LIFE     107 

and  unconsciously  the  collection  offers  in  some  cases  the 
necessary  emotional  outlet.  Collecting  among  children, 
therefore,  is  to  be  encouraged,  particularly  if  it  furnishes 
knowledge  at  the  same  time. 

That  the  collecting  mania  is  a  reaction  to  an  unconscious 
need,  to  an  inner  feeling  of  voidness  concerning  some  par- 
ticular craving  is  best  seen  in  the  collections  made  by  the 
insane.  It  is  common  to  see  a  lunatic  strutting  about  with 
all  sorts  of  things  bulging  from  his  pockets.  The  patient  has 
to  be  searched  from  day  to  day  lest  he  accumulate  enormous 
heaps  of  rubbish.  When  in  the  insane  asylum,  I  would 
sometimes  secure  a  big  bundle  belonging  to  one  of  the  in- 
mates and  begin  to  unravel  it ;  it  would  be  wrapped  in  about 
a  hunded  papers  and  when  I  reached  the  nucleus,  I  found 
but  a  few  pieces  of  glass  or  stone,  in  other  words,  nothing 
but  trash.  They  consider  this  refuse  extremely  valuable 
and  it  is  impossible  to  take  it  away  from  them  in  the  waking 
state,  for  they  will  resist  tooth  and  nail.  I  found  very  soon 
that  such  patients  usually  have  delusions  of  poverty;  they 
feel  that  they  have  lost  everything.  It  may  surprise  you 
to  know  that  a  goodly  number  of  such  patients  are  well-to- 
do;  you  see  that  borne  out  particularly  in  private  practice. 
I  knew  an  old  wealthy  woman  whose  children  asked  me  to 
examine  her,  because  she  would  store  away  a  lot  of  old  news- 
papers and  rubbish  in  a  safe ;  indeed  she  would  fill  an  extra 
safe  with  them.  On  inquiring  why  she  did  that,  she  said, 
"Well,  every  little  thing  counts  nowadays."  The  mental 
deterioration  in  such  patients  blurs  their  sense  of  value,  and 
like  children  who  experience  a  vague  craving  for  something, 
they  blindly  follow  the  impulse. 

I  have  found  a  good  many  people  who  collected  on  a  large 
scale  until  some  marked  change  occurred  in  their  existence. 
I  knew  a  man,  a  bachelor,  for  instance,  who  had  a  room  filled 
with  long  narrow  vases  which  he  collected  for  years.    He  felt 


io8  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

that  there  was  something  very  artistic  in  that  particular  form 
of  vases,  and  formulated  various  theories  about  their  origin, 
etc.  He  had  over  thirty  such  vases  and  every  one  of  them 
had  a  name.  Most  of  them  were  labelled  in  his  own  very 
small  script  as.  Miss  Essie,  Miss  Gwendolyn,  and  similar 
fancy  maiden  names.  When  he  showed  them  to  me  he 
remarked:  "You  see  I'm  not  as  lonesome  as  you  imagine. 
I  have  plenty  of  girls  with  me."  To  my  question  he  answered 
that  the  name  of  one  of  the  vases  was  Mrs.  Gamma. 

As  this  man  was  not  analyzed  by  me  I  could  not  obtain 
direct  information  about  the  origin  of  this  collection  and  can 
only  surmise  the  meaning  of  it.  He  told  me  that  he  began 
his  collection  hobby  with  violins  and  that  he  changed  to  vases 
because,  although  violins  are  also  elongated  and  graceful, 
they  did  not  lend  themselves  for  his  hobby  as  well  as  vases. 
For  one  thing,  he  did  not  care  to  buy  cheap  violins  and  he 
could  not  afford  expensive  ones.  The  naming  of  his  vases 
came  to  him  as  an  inspiration.  He  once  bought  one  and  the 
idea  occurred  to  him  that  "she  recalled  Gwendolyn"  and 
henceforth  he  called  it  by  that  name,  and  gradually  christened 
all  the  others.  I  could  not  get  any  reason  why  he  named 
one  Mrs.  Gamma  except  that  this  particular  vase  looked  to 
him  something  like  the  Greek  letter  Gamma.  As  I  said,  this 
man  was  an  elderly  bachelor  of  about  forty-five,  who  had 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  fair  sex.  He  lived  with  his 
maiden  aunt  since  his  mother  died,  and  when  the  former 
was  gathered  to  her  ancestors  he  kept  a  bachelor's  apart- 
ment with  a  Japanese  valet.  Years  later  I  was  informed 
by  the  same  man  who  first  introduced  me  to  him,  that  the 
vase  collector  suddenly  married  a  young  widow  with  two 
children.  It  was  following  some  operation  during  which  He 
was  nursed  by  this  widow  that  he  decided  to  make  her  his 
wife.  "Does  he  still  collect  vases  ?"  I  inquired.  The  answer 
which  was  sent  to  me  a  few  weeks  later  read  as  follows: 


PSYCHOPATHOLOGY  OF  EVERY-DAY  LIFE    109 

"I  paid  a  visit  to  Mr.  Vase  Collector  and  saw  little  of  his 
former  hobby.  He  lives  quite  contentedly  with  his  family 
in  a  six  room  apartment.  He  told  me  that  his  family  claims 
all  his  spare  time,  that  for  the  present  at  least  he  has  no 
interest  in  his  former  hobby." 

I  have  had  occasion  to  analyze  some  people  of  this  type, 
and  I  have  concluded  that  such  feverish  collecting  activities 
represent  what  we  call  "fetichism,"  a  condition  in  which  an 
inanimate  object  is  endowed  with  certain  marked  emotional 
feelings.  It  was  essentially  a  fetich  for  the  valiant  knight, 
wandering  forth  in  quest  of  adventure,  to  take  along  with 
him  a  handkerchief  from  the  fair  lady  which  he  guarded 
most  religiously. 

"Get  me  a  handkerchief  from  her  bosom,  a 
garter  of  my  love." 

The  cases  that  I  have  in  mind  have,  however,  a  much 
greater  emotional  endowment  than  that  of  the  valiant  knight. 
These  fetichisms  always  have  a  symbolic  significance.  After 
the  first  edition  of  my  book  "Psychoanalysis"  appeared,  I 
received  a  letter  from  a  gentleman  who  informed  me  that 
when  his  old  grandfather  died  it  was  found  that  he  left 
thousands  of  horseshoes  that  he  collected,  and  that  it  was 
quite  a  problem  for  his  children  to  know  what  to  do  with 
them.  He  stated  that  the  man  was  one  of  the  pioneers  in 
the  state  of  Indiana  where  he  was  born,  an  individual  abso- 
lutely typical  of  that  pioneer  type;  he  had  three  wives  and 
when  his  last  one  died,  he  began  to  pay  overtures  to  the 
hired  girls.  The  writer  closed  his  letter  by  remarking  that 
he  thought  that  every  horseshoe  represented  a  certain 
amorous  thought  in  the  old  man's  mind.  When  you  learn 
the  origin  of  the  horseshoe,^  that  it  was  originally  nothing 
but  the  genitals  of  cows  or  camels  which  were  stuck  up  over 

*Cf.  A.  A.  Brill,  Psychoanalysis,  Its  Theories  and  Applications. 
3rd  Edit.    W.  B.  Saunders,  Philadelphia. 


no  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

the  doors  to  avoid  evil  spirits,  you  will  see  that  there  is  good 
reason  for  believing  that  the  correspondent's  interpretation 
is  undoubtedly  correct.  We  may  posit,  then,  the  general 
rule  that  no  person  who  is  emotionally  satisfied,  whose  work 
sufficiently  absorbs  him  and  satisfies  his  emotional  demands, 
really  collects  to  any  marked  degree,  except,  of  course,  if 
he  is  a  professional  collector. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  convince  people  who  are  not  ac- 
quainted with  the  work  we  are  doing,  of  the  deeper  psycho- 
logical meaning  of  these  collecting  manias.  There  is  nothing 
arbitrary  or  fortuitous  about  these  occupations;  they  have 
a  definite  significance  in  each  individual's  Hfe,  and  if  you 
once  gain  the  person's  confidence  you  will  find  that  they  are 
symbolic  of  some  profound  quest,  perhaps  of  some  latent 
erotic  striving  or  wish,  which  by  reason  of  certain  inhibi- 
tions, he  was  unable  to  realize.  "Das  Ewige  weibliche  zieht 
uns  immer  an."  They  are  unconscious  symbolic  actions  of 
which  the  average  person  is  altogether  unaware. 

We  have  thus  far  dwelt  on  the  psychopathology  of  every- 
day life,  and  I  have  attempted  to  show  you  how  such  simple 
or  complex  indicators  are  present  in  every-day  conversation 
and  actions.  Our  fundamental  principle  is  that  nothing  can 
be  hidden ;  repressed  thoughts  forever  strive  to  come  to  the 
surface,  and  our  real  motives  and  wishes  become  manifest 
in  the  "little  unconscious  ways"  of  every-day  life.  As  Van 
Dyke  has  so  happily  put  it :  "Men's  little  ways  are  usually 
more  interesting  and  often  more  instructive  than  their  grand 
manners.  When  they  are  off  guard  they  frequently  show  to 
better  advantage  than  when  they  are  on  parade." 

It  may  be  asked,  "What  value  is  there  in  knowing  these 
psychic  mechanisms?"  I  may  perhaps  best  answer  this 
question  by  relating  to  you  a  story  told  to  me  by  one  of  my 
patients.  An  admirer  of  Freud,  she  brought  up  her  children 
to    understand    these    unconscious    psychic    manifestations. 


PSYCHOPATHOLOGY  OF  EVERY-DAY  LIFE    iii 

One  summer  her  daughter,  a  girl  of  nineteen,  invited  a  young 
man  to  spend  a  few  weeks  at  their  country  home.  Every- 
thing went  well  and  everybody  was  happy;  the  young  man 
thought  highly  of  his  young  friend,  and  Renee  confided  in 
her  mother.  He  was  invited  to  come  again  the  following 
summer,  but  this  time  the  daughter  had  also  her  classmate 
with  her  and  the  young  man  was  sufficiently  indiscreet  to 
show  attention  to  this  new  arrival.  Very  soon  the  mother 
began  to  learn  how  much  Renee  hated  him  and  how  she 
wished  that  he  would  leave,  but  nothing  could  be  done,  be- 
cause the  invitation  was  for  a  certain  number  of  weeks. 
Meanwhile  he  was  fed  on  psychopathology  of  every-day  life, 
its  nature  and  meaning,  and  he  was  soon  well  up  in  the  new 
study.  One  day  he  broke  this  news  to  Renee :  "I  just  re- 
ceived a  message  from  the  city  and  I  have  to  go  home."  He 
left,  and  when  he  reached  the  city,  he  addressed  her  a  little 
note,  saying:  "I  didn't  tell  you  the  truth.  I  really  didn't 
have  to  go,  but  I  noticed  for  a  few  days  that  you  called  me 
Jack,  and  knowing  that  you  hate  Jack,  and  as  your  mistake 
shows  that  you  identified  me  with  him,  I  thought  you  hated 
me  too.  So  it  was  better  for  me  to  leave."  When  the  girl 
had  finished  reading  the  little  missive,  it  was  as  if  lightning 
had  struck  her  from  a  clear  sky.  Running  up  to  her  mother 
she  exclaimed:  "There  you  are  with  your  Freud!"  The 
mother  could  not  understand  at  first  what  had  happened,  but 
upon  learning  the  situation,  she  began  to  calm  the  girl. 
"Now  look  here,"  she  explained,  "after  all,  you  were  very 
anxious  that  he  leave,  for  you  said  you  hated  him ;  and  now 
that  he  is  gone  you  have  no  reason  to  be  angry." 

Thus  the  daughter  was  deeply  hurt  merely  because  her 
real  state  of  feeling  was  discovered.  The  young  man  did 
exactly  what  she  wished  him  to,  and  she  had  no  reason  to 
take  offence.  It  seems  to  me  that  if  we  all  regard  matters 
of  this  sort  in  their  proper  light  we  would  be  relieved  of  a 


112  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

great  many  distressing  problems :  It  was  good  for  the  young 
man  to  take  the  hint;  they  were  really  both  benefited;  he 
felt  more  comfortable  and  she  was  freed  of  an  unnecessary 
burden.  We  should  learn  to  regard  our  unconscious  motives 
as  much  a  part  of  our  true  selves  as  our  conscious  acts; 
there  is  no  reason  why  we  should  be  ashamed  or  alarmed 
when  they  are  discovered.  There  is  nothing  shameful  in  the 
fact  that  an  ardent  worker  for  the  protection  of  cruelty  to 
animals  has  tortured  chickens  when  she  was  a  child,  or  that 
a  prison  reformer  had  indulged  in  primitive  acts  in  early 
boyhood.  Our  civilization  is  a  resultant  of  these  contrary 
forces  in  the  individual.  The  good  in  us  is  only  a  reaction 
to  what  was  once  bad  and  that  had  to  be  repressed.  The 
saint  is  a  former  sinner.  We  are  all  human  and  have  our 
shortcomings.  "Homo  sum;  humani  nihil  mihil  alienum 
puto."  And  so  I  feel  that  we  would  all  be  happier,  if  we 
would  only  be  truthful  at  all  times.  But  the  point  is  that  we 
are  for  the  most  part  not  truthful  to  ourselves — and  hence 
these  slips  or  mistakes  which,  in  their  own  small  way,  have 
the  same  relation  to  the  unconscious  as  the  symptom  itself. 
After  all  it  was  best  for  everybody  concerned  that  the  young 
man  understood  the  meaning  of  this  identification  and 
terminated  the  unbearable  situation  by  his  departure. 


CHAPTER  V 
WIT:    ITS  TECHNIQUE  AND  TENDENCIES 

Some  of  the  examples  that  I  have  given  you  of  the  psycho- 
pathology  of  every-day  life  v^^ere  distinctly  mirth  provoking 
and  could  easily  pass  as  witticisms.  And  as  a  matter  of  fact 
the  slip  made  at  the  evening  dance,  when  one  of  the  guests 
remarked :  'There  is  one  fine  thing  about  Teddy,  he  always 
gives  you  a  square  meal,"  when  he  wished  to  say  a  "square 
rfeal,"  called  forth  no  little  laughter  from  you.  The  guests 
caught  at  once  the  significance  of  the  slip,  for 
it  expressed  just  what  they  were  thinking  about.  Tech- 
Here  the  unconscious  not  only  showed  the  dis-  of 
appointed  state  of  mind  but  the  technique  em- 
ployed in  expressing  it  rendered  it  also  witty.  In  other 
words,  besides  being  a  mere  lapsus  linguae,  it  was  also  a 
witticism.  The  question  now  suggests  itself :  "How  was 
the  wit  produced  in  this  case?"  At  first  sight,  one  might 
say  that  it  was  accomplished  in  a  very  simple  way, — by 
changing  just  one  letter  in  the  word  deal  and  thus  giving 
an  entirely  different  meaning  to  the  whole  phrase.  If  the 
guests  had  been  regaled  with  the  appropriate  meal,  the  slip 
would  not  have  been  made,  or  if  perchance  it  had  been  made, 
it  would  have  passed  unnoticed.  We  may  say,  therefore, 
that  the  wit  was  produced  first,  because  the  wording  fitted 
in  with  the  situation,  and  secondly,  because  of  the  slight 
changing  in  the  word.  The  unconscious  expression  served  as 
a  compensation  for  the  disappointment  of  both  the  speaker 
and  the  guests  generally.     Instead  of  feeling  angry  at  the 

"3 


114  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

host  for  serving  sandwiches  and  lemonade  when  something 
more  substantial  was  expected,  they  were  now  deriving  much 
pleasure  from  passing  around  the  huge  joke.  If  one  should 
ask  what  actually  produced  the  pleasure  in  the  witticism,  we 
would  have  to  say  that  the  guests  were  fascinated  and  amused 
because  through  the  slip,  the  speaker  could  openly  voice  the 
sentiment  of  all,  telling  the  host  what  everybody  thought  of 
him,  but  could  not  say  because  of  social  proprieties.  In 
other  v/ords,  one  may  say  that  every  guest  thought:  "What 
a  stingy  host,"  but  no  one  could  say  it  aloud.  Through  the 
lapsus  linguae,  however,  the  host  was  actually  told :  "you  are 
stingy;  you  can  afford  to  give  us  a  generous  meal,  instead 
you  serve  merely  sandwiches  and  lemonade."  But  such  an 
open  expression  was  impossible  in  that  social  gathering.  We 
may  say,  in  brief,  that  a  change  of  the  letter  "d"  to  "m" 
allowed  the  guests  to  draw  pleasure  from  otherwise  for- 
bidden sources.  Because  the  truth  was  told  where  one 
usually  lies,  every  one  was  happy,  except  the  one  to  whom 
tlie  truth  was  told, — the  host.  The  particular  example  shows 
that  there  is  some  connection  between  faulty  actions  and 
wit  in  both  technique  and  psychology.  In  order  to  under- 
stand this  connection  better,  it  may  be  wise  to  go  a  bit  deeper 
into  the  nature  and  mechanism  of  wit. 

In  a  paper  that  I  wrote  some  years  ago  on  "Wit"  I  men- 
tioned the  fact  that  in  a  short  story  I  had  read,  one  of  the 
characters,  a  "sport,"  speaks  of  the  Christmas  season  as  the 
"Alcoholidays."  Here  two  words  are  fused  together  be- 
cause of  a  certain  intimate  connection  between  them,  and  the 
resultant  new  word  expresses  a  certain  sense  to  the  hearer 
which  he  conceives  as  witty.  We  know  that  on  holidays  one 
allows  himself  a  greater  degree  of  freedom  than  on  ordinary 
days,  and  in  the  past  they  were  conducive  to  alcoholic  in- 
dulgence. And  so  when  one  hears  the  word  "alcoholidays," 
one  smiles  and  knows  what  the  person  means  to  convey.    The 


WIT:   ITS  TECHNIQUE  AND  TENDENCIES    Ii5 

word  represents  a  fusion,  a  condensation  of  ideas  as  well  as 
words.  Instead  of  saying  "On  holidays  one  gets  drunk  and 
feels  well,"  the  speaker  fused  the  whole  thought  into  one 
word, — "alcoholidays." 

Let  us  take  another  example  of  condensation  as  it  is  seen 
in  wit.  In  his  work  "Lothair"  Disraeli  said,  "When  a  man 
falls  into  anecdotage,  it  is  time  for  him  to  retire,"  We  may 
readily  see  that  the  fused  word  is  made  up  of  "anecdote" 
and  "dotage."  We  know  that  in  old  age  people  resort  to 
anecdotes.  This  is  borne  out  among  sane  and  insane  alike. 
In  senile  dementia,  one  of  the  most  important  diagnostic 
points  is  a  lack  of  impressibility  for  recent  impressions  and 
a  continual  return  to  the  past.  The  patient  does  not  remem- 
ber what  he  had  for  breakfast  a  half  hour  after,  he  goes  out 
to  do  an  errand  and  forgets  what  it  is.  But  he  remembers 
things  of  the  remote  past.  He  usually  begins,  "When  I  was 
in  the  Civil  War.  .  .  ."  or  "You  should  have  seen  the  girls 
of  fifty  years  ago.  .  .  .,"  etc.  Normal  aged  people  show 
the  same  mechanism,  but  of  course  not  to  so  marked  a  degree. 
When  an  individual  resorts  to  anecdotes  it  means  that  he 
no  longer  feels  himself  a  part  of  the  present,  that  he  is  in 
dotage  and  hence  may  as  well  retire.  And  as  a  matter  of 
fact  he  has  retired,  psychiatrically  speaking.  The  word 
"anecdotage"  is  therefore  a  condensation  of  a  number  of 
thoughts  as  well  as  of  words. 

Some  one  said :  "All  men  are  homeless,  but  some  men  are 
home  less  than  others."  Here  the  word  "homeless"  is  not 
a  new  word,  but  if  you  break  it  up  into  two  parts  you  get 
two  distinct  words  expressing  an  entirely  different  idea. 
The  wit  here  is  altogether  due  to  the  technique. 

Another  illustration  is  the  following:  The  man  who  says 
the  present  styles  are  shocking  is  always  zmlling  to  be  a 
shock-absorber. 

Once  I  ran  on  to  this  remark :  "Some  lawyers  earn  their 


ii6  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

bread  by  the  siveat  of  their  brow-beating."  Here  again,  we 
see  the  condensation.  The  well-known  Biblical  phrase,  "To 
earn  thy  bread  by  the  sweat  of  the  brow,"  is  modified  here, 
the  fusion  of  the  two  words  giving  an  altogether  different 
meaning  to  the  expression,  for  one  at  once  recalls  a  well 
known  characteristic  of  many  lawyers. 

In  the  category  of  condensation  of  words  we  may  place 
also  the  following:  "Not  being  favored  by  Dame  Luck,  he 
became  a  Lame  Duck."  This  form  of  wit  is  what  the  Ger- 
mans call  "Schiittel-rheim," — shuffling  rhyme.  Here  is  an- 
other example  of  it:  It  was  Mr.  Smith's  first  Sunday  as 
usher  in  church.  He  was  all  flustered,  and  turning  to  a  lady 
who  entered,  he  said :  "This  way,  lady,  I  will  sew  you  into  a 
sheet."  A  very  fine  example  of  this  type  of  wit  is  seen  in 
the  case  of  that  punctilious  gentleman  who  made  the  indeli- 
cate slip  we  noted  on  a  previous  occasion. 

Just  as  we  have  condensation  of  words,  so  we  have  con- 
densation of  thoughts.  A  very  good  example  of  what  I  mean 
is  an  army  witticism  that  I  have  cited  in  one  of  my  papers. 
"A  corporal,  during  drill,  shouts  to  the  recruits:  'Keep  it 
up,  boys,  courage  and  perseverance  bring  everything.  The 
egg  of  Columbus  zvas  not  laid  in  a  day.'  Here  you  see 
there  were  two  thoughts,  two  sayings  fused  together :  'Rome 
was  not  built  in  a  day,'  and  the  anecdote  of  the  egg  of  Co- 
lumbus. What  the  corporal  meant  to  say  was,  all  ttiat  you 
boys  need  is  practice ;  it  is  as  simple  as  it  was  for  Columbus 
to  stand  the  egg  on  end;  don't  be  discouraged,  Rome  was 
not  built  in  a  day.  He  fused  these  two  ideas,  however,  and 
thus  produced  the  substitutive  formation,  'the  egg  of  Co- 
lumbus was  not  lafd  in  a  day,'  which  on  account  of  its 
absurdity  and  incongruity  carries  the  wit  of  the  jest." 

We  may  also  produce  condensation  of  thought  by  using 
the  same  expression  or  the  same  words  in  different  meanings. 
For  example:  The  question  is  asked:    "Why  was  Goliath 


WIT:    ITS  TECHNIQUE  AND  TENDENCIES     117 

surprised  wlien  David  struck  him  with  a  stone F"  The  answer 
is :  "Because  such  a  thing  never  entered  his  head  before!" 
Here  the  witticism  is  entirely  due  to  the  fact  that  the  ex- 
pression "entering  one's  head"  is  used  in  an  entirely  different 
sense  from  the  idea  of  a  "stone  entering  one's  head."  If  the 
answer  had  been,  "Because  such  a  thing  never  pierced  his 
head  before,"  there  would  have  been  no  witticism.  It  is 
because  the  word  "enter"  was  used  in  the  figurative  sense,  as 
denoting  cognizance  or  awareness,  that  the  joke  was  produced. 
The  mechanism  of  condensation  noted  above  plays  an 
extremely  important  part,  not  only  in  wit  but  also  in  dreams. 
In  the  dream,  words,  pictures,  ideas  and  situations  are  all 
subject  to  the  process  of  condensation.  Let  me  give  you 
an  example.  Miss  R.  dreamed  "that  she  saw  a  woman,  whom 
she  later  identified  as  her  sister-in-law,  standing  on  a  sort 
of  platform,  surrounded  by  a  multitude  of  people  who  were 
apparently  applauding  her.  She  was  brushing  her  clothes, 
but  instead  of  brushing  them  down,  she  brushed  them  up." 
The  dream  was  a  condensation  of  the  following  thoughts: 
"My  sister-in-law  always  likes  to  be  in  the  limelight;  she 
always  wants  an  audience.  She  is  very  coarse,  and  doesn't 
know  how  to  act  delicately  in  polite  society."  Brushing  one's 
clothes  with  a  brush  upwards  is  sometimes  extremely  im- 
polite and  coarse,  and  describes  very  well  the  whole  situation. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  another  form  of  the  technique  of  wit. 
By  way  of  illustration,  take  this  witticism: 

Contributor :    "You  sit  down  on  every  joke  I  write." 

Editor :  "Well,  I  wouldn't  if  there  was  any  point  to  them." 
— (The  Christian  Advocate,  N.  Y.) 

The  technique  lies  here  seemingly  in  the  double  meaning 
of  the  phrase  "to  sit  down,"  which  is  used  first,  metaphor- 
ically, meaning  to  reject,  and  in  the  second,  it  is  used  in  the 
actual  sense  of  "sitting  down.'*    If,  instead  of  using  "to  sit 


ii8  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

down,"  one  would  say,  "to  reject,"  just  as  in  the  preceding 
witticism,  if  it  were  said  "to  pierce"  instead  of  "to  enter," 
there  would  be  no  wit.  When  one  examines  the  witticism 
more  closely,  however,  one  finds  that  the  reduction  has  not 
been  applied  to  the  right  place.  The  jest  does  not  lie  in  the 
contributor's  statement,  but  rather  in  the  editor's  rejoinder, 
that  is,  in  the  answer,  "Well,  I  wouldn't  if  there  was  any 
point  to  them."  The  editor  takes  advantage  of  the  double 
meaning  of  "to  sit  down"  and  produces  wit  by  ignoring  the 
empty  sense  and  using  it  literally.  His  own  use  of  the  word 
in  the  idiomatic  sense  furnishes  the  wit.  For  if  his  answer 
had  been,  "Well,  I  wouldn't  if  there  was  any  wit  to  them," 
there  would  have  been  no  joke. 

In  order  to  understand  better  the  mechanism  illustrated 
by  the  above  jokes,  let  us  take  another  example : 
A  Favored  Mortal 

The  Mendicant: — "Could  you  help  a  poor  homeless  guy 
that  ain't  got  a  dollar  nor  a  friend?" 

Old   Multirox : — "Not  a  friend?     No   one  to   tell  you 
disagreeable  things  for  your  own  good?    No  one 
ment  to  touch  you  for  a  dollar?    Man,  you  don't  know 

your  luck." — (Judge,  1921.) 

How  is  the  wit  produced  here?  You  see  Old  Multirox 
displaces  the  accent  from  the  mendicant's  request  for  ma- 
terial help  to  something  entirely  different,  when  he  says, 
"not  a  friend,"  etc.  He  deliberately  ignores  the  first  part  of 
the  mendicant's  recital  asking  for  money,  and  dwells  on  the 
last  part  of  the  sentence  which  the  beggar  gave  as  a  secondary 
reason  for  asking  him  for  help.  He  thus  tries  to  give  the 
beggar  the  impression  that  far  from  being  badly  off  because 
he  has  not  a  friend,  he  is  to  be  congratulated  for  being  so 
fortunate.  Whatever  he  said  about  a  friend  may  be  gen- 
erally true  of  some  friends  but  that  was  beside  the  question 
here.    The  beggar  asked  for  money  and  cared  little  about  a 


WIT:   ITS  TECHNIQUE  AND  TENDENCIES     119 

lecture  on  the  badness  of  having  friends.  In  other  words, 
the  supposed  benefactor  displaced  the  accent  from  the  main 
issue,  the  request  for  money,  to  the  explanatory,  though 
unimportant  part  of  the  whole  thing. 

In  both  of  the  above  examples  the  technique  lies  in  the 
displacement  of  the  psychic  accent;  this  is  especially  marked 
in  the  last  joke:  "Not  a  friend?"  The  supposed  benefactor 
answers  as  if  the  request  were  for  a  friend,  and  the  element 
of  charity  does  not  appear  at  all. 

Take  another  example :  A  man  loses  his  gold-headed  cane. 
The  next  morning  he  recalls  that  he  must  have  left  it  in  a 
cafe,  but  it  occurs  to  him  that  he  visited  four  cafes  during 
that  evening.  He  inquires  in  one  of  them:  ''Waiter,  did 
I  leave  a  cane  here?"  "No  cane  was  found,"  was  the 
answer.  He  then  calls  at  the  next  restaurant,  asks  the  same 
question  hut  receives  the  same  answer.  He  visits  the  third 
place  and  again  asks:  "Alphonse,  have  I  left  my  cane  here 
yesterday f"  "No,  monsieur,  nothing  was  found."  When 
he  reaches  the  fourth  restaurant  he  is  pretty  well  discouraged. 
He  asks  the  same  question  but  this  time  the  waiter  replies: 
"Yes,  we  have  it."  He  was  very  pleased  and  said:  "I  shall 
never  go  to  the  other  cafes  again:  this  is  the  only  place  I  will 
visit  hereafter."  Where  does  the  wit  lie  ?  Here  again,  the 
man  displaces  the  whole  emotional  accent  from  the  important 
point  to  something  very  trivial.  He  is  keenly  disappointed 
in  those  cafes  where  the  cane  was  not  found,  forgetting  that 
it  was  no  fault  of  theirs  that  he  did  not  leave  it  there.  He 
behaves  as  if  the  cane  had  been  in  all  the  four  places  and  all, 
but  the  last,  refused  to  return  it  to  him.  In  other  words, 
he  assumes  that  there  are  four  canes,  and  that  he  lost  three. 

The  above  joke  illustrates  also  another  mechanism  which 
we  call  "automatism."    A  person  falls  into  a  certain  trend 


I20  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

of  thought,  gets  accustomed  to  it  and  follows  it  automatically, 
regardless  of  whether  it  has  logic  or  not.  The  following 
examples  will  serve  as  illustration : 

A  dentist  had  to  crawl  under  his  auto  in  order  to  make 
some  adjustment  in  the  machinery.  Applying  the  monkey 
wrench  to  it  he  said  soothingly:  "Now  this  is  going  to  hurt 
just  a  little." 

The  father  of  the  bride,  an  Hmdertaker,  was  busily  en- 
gaged in  getting  everything  ready  for  the  departure  of  the 

_  ^  newlyweds  for  their  honeymoon.     At  last   all 

Automa-  J  '  .  -^ 

^m  the  baggage  was  m  the  car  and  after  taking 

affectionate  leave  of  his  son-in-law  and  daughter 

he  slammed  the  door  of  the  car  and  cried  to  the  driver, 

"Cypress  Hills"  (one  of  our  great  cemeteries). 

In  both  examples  one  observes  the  automatism  of  thought. 

The  dentist  could  not   forget  his  profession  whenever  he 

applied  any  instrument  to  something.    His  assuring  formula 

became  so  automatic  that  he  used  it  even  in  inanimate  objects, 

while  the  undertaker  could  only  think  of  the  removal  of  a 

corpse  when  he  slammed  the  door  of  the  vehicle. 

This  leads  us  to  another  form  of  wit  which  is  well  illus- 
trated in  the  following  example: 

"Why  were  they  married?" 

"Because  they  fell  in  love." 

"And  why  were  they  divorced?" 

"Because  they  fell  in  love." 

The  witticism  may  recall  "the  manifold  application  of  the 
same  material":  but  in  this  case,  the  double  meaning  plays 
no  part.  The  important  factor  in  this  example  depends  on 
the  formation  of  a  new  and  unexpected  identity,  and  on  the 
production  of  ideas  and  definitions  related  to  each  other  and 
to  a  common  third.  "And  why  were  they  divorced  ?"  It  is 
a  unification.     Unification  is  also  the  basis  of  the  quick 


WIT:    ITS  TECHNIQUE  AND  TENDENCIES     121 

repartee  in  wit,  for  ready  repartee  consists  in  using  the 
defense  for  aggression,  and  in  "turning  the  tables"  or  in 
"paying  with  the  same  coin";  that  is,  the  repartee  consists 
in  establishing  an  unexpected  identity  between  attack  and 
counter-attack.  It  is  also  well  illustrated  in  the  following 
examples : 

A  lawyer  of  small  stature  came  into  a  court  to  look  after 
his  client's  interests.  His  opponent,  not  knowing  him,  asked 
him  what  he  wanted,  and  on  being  told  who  he  was,  jokingly 
remarked:  "What?  Such  a  little  lawyer?  Why  I  could 
put  you  in  my  pocket!"  "You  could,"  tranquilly  responded 
the  former,  "but  then  you  would  have  more  brains  in  your 
pocket  than  in  your  head." — Here  there  is  a  definite  estab- 
lishment of  identification,  of  pocket  and  smallness  of  stature, 
to  a  definite  third, — "brains,"  the  repartee  thus  being  estab- 
lished. 

Likewise  there  is  a  story  told  about  Augustus  Caesar  who, 
travelling  in  the  province,  met  a  man  who  resembled  him 
very  much.    He  turned  to  him  and  said:    "Tell 

.        ,  .  ,     ,       XTnifloation 

me,  was  your  mother  ever  m  the  service  of  the  or  Repartee 
emperor  at  Rome?"     The  man  replied:     "Not 
my  mother,  but  my  father!"    This  is  as  clever  a  retort  as 
one  could  give  to  a  person  whom  one  cannot  possibly  insult, 
and  sums  up  the  situation  most  admirably. 

Other  examples  of  unification  wit  or  repartee  are  as 
follows : 

After  a  poor  recitation  in  English,  a  student  suflfering 
from  a  stigmata  of  obesity  is  rebuked  thus  by  the  professor : 
"You  are  better  fed  than  learned."  To  which  the  student 
retorts:    "Yes,  you  teach  me,  and  I  feed  myself." 

He :    "Yes,  a  married  man  lives  a  dog's  life." 
She:    "Yes,  barks  all  day  and  growls  all  night." 

— Simplicissimus. 


122  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

There  is  another  form  of  the  technique  of  wit  that  we  do 
not  meet  with  very  often,  which  illustrates  a  mechanism 
Nonsense  often  observed  in  unconscious  mentation.  Here 
"'^^  is  an  example : 

The  first  cinder  speaking  to  the  second :  "Why  so  angry  f" 
The  second  answers :  "I  have  been  wasting  time  in  a  glass 
eye." 

The  witticism  is  a  fine  example  of  animism,  by  which  is 
meant,  attributing  an  animate  quality  or  condition  to  an 
inanimate  object.^  It  is  a  mechanism  which  is  found  also 
in  dreams.  The  wit  arises  here  from  the  na'ivity  of  the 
conception ;  every  one  knows  what  it  means  to  have  a  cinder 
in  the  eye,  but  when  one  hears  that  it  is  a  glass  eye,  one  im- 
mediately sees  the  comedy  instead  of  the  tragedy  of  the  situa- 
tion. No  one  would  laugh  if  the  word  "glass"  would  have 
been  omitted;  in  fact  the  answer  would  have  been  mal  a 
propos,  because  when  a  cinder  gets  in  the  eye  it  is  not  a 
question  of  wasting  time.  The  wit  is  produced  altogether 
by  the  fact  that  a  situation  has  been  created  which  belongs 
to  the  naive,  to  what  we  may  regard  as  nonsensical. 

Another  form  of  wit  we  may  designate  as  elliptical;  the 
figure  "ellipsis"  as  used  in  rhetoric,  denoting  omission.  The 
EUipsia  question  is  asked:  "Do  yon  think  ignorance  is 
"^^*  bliss?"    And  the  answer  is:  "Well,  you  seem  to 

be  happy!"    As  is  seen,  at  least  one  thought  is  left  out  be- 
tween the  question  and  the  answer. 

We  find  this  same  form  of  wit  in  the  following  example: 
Husband  to  his  wife:  "If  one  of  us  should  die  I'll  live 
in  New  York."  The  wit  is  produced  by  ignoring  the  pos- 
sibility of  the  first  part  of  the  statement  and  acting  as  if 
there  was  no  question  that  his  wife  will  die  first,  thus  re- 
vealing what  was  omitted  in  conscious  thought. 

*  Cf .  the  conception  of  talking  trees  in  Greek  mythology. 


WIT:    ITS  TECHNIQUE  AND  TENDENCIES     123 

There  are  also  witticisms  which  express  other  mechanisms 
than  those  thus  far  considered.  Take,  for  instance,  the 
following : 

The  Mark  of  Perfection 

Dyer :    "Horn  do  you  like  your  new  car?" 

Ryer:  "Fine!  It  won't  do  a  thing  the  salesman  claimed 
it  ivould."  Here  the  wit  is  produced  by  uttering  the  exact 
opposite  of  what  might  be  expected.    One  would 

.  Reprssentai- 

expect   such   an   answer   as   this :      "Very   well  tion  tiiroug-h 

.     ,       ,       .        ,  ,  .  ,  ,  ,  the  Opposite 

mdeed,  it  does  everythmg  that  the  salesman 
assured  us  it  would  do,"  but  the  average  automobile  owner's 
faith  in  the  auto  salesman  is  rudely  bumped  when  he  finds 
that  the  car  does  not  run  at  least  twenty  miles  on  a  gallon 
of  gas,  that  this  or  that  part  does  get  out  of  order  or  broken, 
etc.,  etc.  The  wit-provoking  element  is  the  universal  knowl- 
edge of  the  very  exaggerating  proclivities  of  salesmen  which 
customers  always  take  into  consideration.  The  technique 
is  representation  through  the  opposite. 

The  following  example  represents  another  technique  of 
wit  which  we  designate  as  sense  in  nonsense : 

Sometime  after  losing  her  grandfather  little  Ethel  asked 
her  mother  if  she  could  play  the  piano : 

"No,  dear;  don't  you  know  that  we  are  in  mourning?"  her 
mother  replied. 

"Well,"  insisted  the  child,  "I  don't  think  it  would  be  wicked 
if  I  only  played  on  the  black  keys." — (Judge,  1921.) 

The  child's  answer  is  witty  because  it  is  so  senseless  and 
naive,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  made  nonsensical  only  to 
express  a  senseful  reproach  to  her  mother  for  her  sense  in 
way  of  following  this  conventional  hypocrisy  of  i^oJisense 
modern  life,  the  absurd  idea  of  wearing  black  to  express 
one's  sorrow  over  the  death  of  near  relatives.  What  a  child 
usually  observes  is  that  in  reality  there  is  very  little  mortifi- 
cation over  the  death  of  a  grandparent,  indeed  in  most  cases 


124  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

there  is  a  sigh  of  relief  when  dear  grandpa  is  gone, 
because  one  needs  the  money  and  one  has  been  terribly 
annoyed  by  his  protracted  illness,  etc.  A  child  always  ob- 
serves much  more  than  parents  realize  and  soon  notices  that 
mourning  does  not  deprive  the  mourner  of  anything  that 
he  really  wants,  but  it  is  used  as  an  excuse  for  refusing 
invitations  from  people  one  dislikes,  etc.  In  brief,  the  child's 
thoughts  could  be  reduced  as  follows :  "As  far  as  I  see  you 
haven't  given  up  a  single  pleasure  over  the  death  of  grandpa, 
all  you  do  is  wear  black.  Why  prohibit  me  from  playing? 
I  suppose  I  could  play  if  the  keys  were  black." 

From  the  mechanism  of  sense  in  nonsense  we  will  proceed 
to  "outdoing"  wit,  of  which  the  following  is  an  example: 

Mrs.  A.  to  Mrs.  B. :  "Can  you  recommend  your  former 
servant,  does  she  understand  everything  well?"  "Oh,  yes, 
outaoin^  ^^^^  understands  everything  even  better,"  an- 
"'^^  swered  Mrs.  B.     What  produces  the  witticism 

here  is  that  she  recommends  her  servant  so  very  highly  that 
she  expresses  the  very  opposite !  In  other  words,  the  servant 
does  not  understand  anything.  ...  It  is  the  mechanism  of 
representing  by  the  opposite,  or  the  mechanism  of  outdoing. 

Take,  for  instance,  this  excellent  joke:  A  Jew  and  a 
Greek  are  in  a  cafe,  enjoying  their  coffee  and  talking.  Says 
the  Greek:  "You  know,  Jacob,  the  old  Greeks  were  the 
most  wonderful  people  that  ever  lived.  They  knew  every- 
thing. Just  recently  they  were  digging  around  the  Acropolis 
in  Athens  and  they  found  wires,  which  shows  that  the  old 
Greeks  used  telegraphy,"  Then  the  Jew:  "That's  alright, 
but  I  tell  you  the  Jews  were  the  most  wonderful  people. 
They  recently  dug  around  the  walls  of  Jerusalem  and  did  not 
find  anything,  which  shows  that  the  old  Jews  used  wireless 
telegraphy!"  This  is  a  very  fine  example  of  outdoing  wit ;  at 
the  same  time,  as  you  see,  it  also  tries  to  represent  something 


WIT:    ITS  TECHNIQUE  AND  TENDENCIES     125 

by  the  very  opposite : — because  nothing  was  found,  therefore 
the  supposed  condition! 

Very  often  wit  is  produced  by  the  expression  of  something 
similar  and  cognate,  as  given  in  this  example  from  Heinrich 
Heine : 

"This  woman  resembles  Venus  de  Milo  in  many  points: 
Like  Venus  de  Milo  she  is  extraordinarily  old.  Like  Venus 
she  has  no  teeth;  like  Venus  she  has  white  spots  ^^^  throng-ii 
on  the  yellow  surface  of  her  body."  In  other  similarity 
words,  he  begins  with  the  idea  that  she  must  be  very  beauti- 
ful, and  compares  her  with  Venus,  but  he  selects  certain 
points  of  similarity  that  show  just  the  opposite.  Yet  all  the 
points  that  the  poet  mentions  are  perfectly  true.  He  thus 
depicts  something  very  ugly  by  comparing  it  with  something 
very  beautiful. 

We  have  described  thus  far,  briefly  of  course,  the  most 
common  forms  of  the  technique  of  wit.  As  we  have  pointed 
out  above,  the  process  of  condensation  which  we  have  noted 
in  the  technique  of  wit  appears  also  in  the  formation  of 
dreams.  So,  too,  displacement,  absurdity,  indirect  repre- 
sentation and  expression  through  the  opposite — all  these  are 
found  also  in  the  technique  of  dreams.  It  is  the  process  of 
displacement  that  renders  the  dream  so  incomprehensible  to 
us  and  thus  prevents  us  from  seeing  in  the  dream  only  a 
continuation  of  our  waking  thoughts.  The  existence  of  the 
naive  and  absurd  in  the  dream  is  the  reason  why  people 
generally  think  that  there  is  a  deterioration  of  the  psychic 
activities  in  the  dream.  We  find  also  in  the  dream  expression 
through  the  opposite,  indirect  expressions  and  other  mechan- 
isms found  in  wit.  We  thus  see  how  much  alike  in  technique 
are  the  two  psycliic  phenomena. 

When  we  inquire  into  wit,  as  concerns  its  tendencies,  we 
find  that  it  falls  into  two  classes,  purposeful  wit,  or  that 


126  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

which  shows  definite  aims,  and  harmless  wit,  or  that  which 
shows  no  particular  aim.  As  an  example  of  harmless  wit, 
The  Tenden-  ^"^^^  ^^^  following :  Smith  asks  Brown  :  "Have 
ciesofwit    yoii  ^^^^  fji(,  „^^  Murillof"     "No,  I  have  not 

gone  to  the  Zoological  Garden  for  a  year."  This  is  only 
understood,  when  we  know  that  Murillo  was  a  great  Spanish 
painter.  The  name,  however,  sounds  like  that  of  some  sort 
of  animal.  It  is  only  purposeful  wit  that  is  apt  to  be  met 
with  resistance  from  hearers  or  persons  concerned.  A  harm- 
less joke  may  be  produced  by  witty  words  or  witty  thoughts, 
and  any  of  the  techniques  described  may  serve  to  produce  a 
purposeful  witticism.  Whenever  wit  is  not  harmless,  that 
is,  when  it  is  purposeful  and  shows  a  definite  aim,  it  has 
two  tendencies :  it  is  either  hostile,  aggressive, — or  it  is  ob- 
scene, sexual. 

Take,  for  instance,  the  smutty  joke.  We  may  define  it  as 
a  joke  which  brings  into  prominence  some  sexual  facts  or 
relations  through  speech.  Such  jokes  are  constantly  read 
and  heard  in  theatres  and  at  the  finest  social  gatherings.  A 
typical  example  is  the  following: 

Mrs.  Chatterton:  "There's  D'Auher's  shocking  picture, 
'Love  in  Arcady.'  They  say  ifs  a  portrait  of  you.  You 
don't  mean  to  tell  me  you  posed  for  it?" 

Mrs.  Proudfit:  "Certainly  not!  He  must  have  painted 
it  from  memory." — {Judge,  1921.) 

Of  course,  rendering  prominent  something  sexual,  does 
not  necessarily  produce  wit.  A  lecture  on  the  anatomy  of 
the  sexual  organs  or  on  the  physiology  of  reproduction  need 
not  necessarily  provoke  laughter.  The  smutty  joke  must 
fulfill  certain  conditions:  In  the  first  place,  it  must  be 
directed  toward  a  certain  person  who  stimulates  one  sexually, 
and  who  becomes  aware  of  the  speaker's  excitement  by  lis- 
tening to  the  smutty  joke,  and  in  turn  becomes  sexually 
excited.     Very  often,  instead  of  becoming  sexually  excited 


WIT:   ITS  TECHNIQUE  AND  TENDENCIES     127 

one  reacts  with  embarrassment  or  shame,  which  only  shows 
a  reaction  against  the  excitement  and  thus  signifies  an 
admission  of  the  same.  The  smutty  joke  was  originally 
directed  against  the  woman,  a  fact  amply  borne  out  in  the 
histories  of  smutty  wit.  That  nowadays,  however,  smutty 
jokes  are  mostly  told  among  men,  is  only  due  to  the  fact  that 
civilization  and  culture  have  rendered  the  original  situation 
impossible  of  reahzation;  this  is  counterbalanced,  however, 
by  the  theatres  and  comic  periodicals.  The  smutty  joke  is 
only  an  exhibition  directed  against  a  person  to  whom  one  is 
not  sexually  indifferent.  Through  the  utterance  of  obscene 
words,  the  person  attacked  is  excited  to  picture  the  parts  of 
the  body  of  tlie  person  in  question,  and  is  shown  that  the 
aggressor  pictures  the  same  thing.  In  other  words,  when  a 
man  seeks  out  a  woman  and  tells  her  a  sexual  joke,  it  is 
because  she  stimulates  him  sexually,  and  he  hopes  by  telling 
her  the  joke  to  stimulate  her  sexually,  in  turn.  She  may 
either  laugh  at  it,  which  shows  that  she  enjoys  the  situation, 
or  become  embarrassed,  which  to  the  person  who  makes  the 
joke,  means  the  same  thing.  The  following  is  a  good  example 
of  this  kind  of  wit: 

Rub : — "A  zvoman  has  just  been  arrested  for  carrying 
concealed  weapons." 

Dub : — "Where?" — {Judge,   1921.) 

There  is  no  doubt  that  originally  the  motive  of  the  sug- 
gestive risque  joke  was  exhibitionism, — the  pleasure  of 
seeing  the  sexual  displayed.  As  Freud  has  pointed  out,  one 
of  the  primitive  components  of  our  libido  is  the  desire  to 
see  the  sexual  exposed.  All  animals  exhibit  during  the 
mating  season.  And  among  human  beings,  it  is  a  common 
observation  that  the  greatest  amount  of  sho wing-off  on  the 
part  of  men  is  done  in  the  presence  of  women.  There  prob- 
ably would  be  no  football  games,  or  other  college  exhibitions, 
were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  the  participator  expects  to  see 


128  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

at  the  event  his  best  girl,  or  perhaps  his  sister  or  mother. 
This  form  of  showing  off  is  nothing  but  a  sublimated  activity 
of  the  infantile  exhibitionism.  The  desire  to  see  the  sexual 
is  probably  only  a  substitute  for  the  desire  to  touch  the 
sexual  which  may  be  considered  the  primary  pleasure.  The 
libido  for  looking  and  touching  is  found  in  every  person. 
We  all  know  that  touching  the  skin  of  the  sexual  object 
causes  pleasure  and  excitement.  The  same  holds  true  of 
looking  which  is  analogous  to  touching. 

Sexual  excitement  is  frequently  awakened  by  optical  im- 
pressions, and  selection  taking  account  of  this  fact  makes  the 
sexual  object  a  thing  of  beauty.  The  fact  that  one  animal 
is  preferred  to  another  is  undoubtedly  due  to  only  one 
thing, — that  the  one  looks  better  to  the  mate  than  the  other. 
Of  course,  originally  everything  was  done  very  frankly,  and 
touching  and  looking  were  perfectly  normal  mechanisms. 
The  introduction  of  clothing  to  cover  the  body,  has  only 
aroused  a  much  greater  sexual  curiosity,  and  the  individual 
constantly  strives  to  supplement  the  sexual  object  by  uncov- 
ering the  hidden  parts  through  his  imagination.  Looking  and 
touching  are  intermediary  sexual  aims,  that  is,  they  are  not 
ends  in  themselves,  they  merely  lead  to  mating ;  they  conduce 
to  the  selection  of  the  person  who  pleases  the  individual  more 
than  any  other  person.  If  one  lingers  very  much  at  one  of 
the  intermediary  stages,  that  is,  if  one  is  not  using  the 
partial  component  for  the  selection  of  a  mate,  but  makes  it  his 
primary  aim,  he  suffers  from  an  abnormal  sexual  tendency 
which  we  regard  as  a  perversion.  That  is  to  say,  such  a 
person  fixes  on  the  looking  as  the  main  sexual  pleasure 
instead  of  directing  it  toward  the  normal  sexual  aim.  He  is 
what  is  designated  as  a  voyeur  or  a  "peeper."  The  desire  to 
exhibit  is  readily  seen  in  children  and  if  not  subjected  to  the 
normal  sexual  repression,  it  develops  into  a  desire  for  ex- 
hibition, a  common  perversion  in  some  grown  up  men. 


WIT:   ITS  TECHNIQUE  AND  TENDENCIES     129 

It  is  such  partial  components  as  exhibitionism  and  touch- 
ing, which,  when  repressed,  still  leave  a  certain  amount  of 
libido  ungratified  that  men  try  to  supplement  through  speech. 
By  arousing  a  picture  of  his  type  in  the  woman  the  man 
leads  hpr  to  merge  into  a  corresponding  excitement  and  the 
reaction  of  laughter  or  embarrassment  thus  produced  in  her 
gives  him  a  certain  amount  of  pleasure.  We  know  from 
everyday  experience  that  though  the  joke  may  have  nothing 
in  common  with  smut,  the  fact  that  it  provokes  laughter  in 
others  gives  the  person  who  made  it  a  marked  degree  of 
pleasure.  That  is  why  we  always  seek  an  audience  to  tell 
a  joke.  The  speech  of  courtship  is  certainly  not  regularly 
the  smutty  joke,  but  may  very  often  pass  over  into  one.  We 
may  say,  then,  that  sexual  aggression  when  inhibited  ex- 
presses itself  usually  in  speech. 

Another  factor  in  determining  the  smutty  wit  is  the  un- 
yieldingness of  the  woman.  Nature  has  purposely  designed 
that  the  woman  be  passive  in  that  regard,  for  it  was  intended 
that  only  the  fittest  and  strongest  should  mate  and  survive. 
It  is  necessary  for  the  woman  not  to  yield  too  readily,  for 
in  this  way  she  is  able  to  have  many  men  court  her.  Thus 
only  the  most  persistent  and  strongest  would  finally  be 
chosen.  If  the  female  of  the  species  should  yield  immediately 
she  would  mate  with  any  weakling,  and  a  rather  poor 
progeny  would  be  the  outcome.  So  that  among  human 
beings,  as  among  animals,  the  woman,  though  she  may  be  in 
love  with  the  man,  will  always  hold  back ;  she  does  not  do 
this  deliberately,  as  you  might  think;  it  is  quite  an  uncon- 
scious reaction.  The  only  point  is  that  sometimes  women, 
particularly  of  a  neurotic  type,  hold  back  too  long  and  the 
man  gets  tired  and  finds  another  woman.  I  have  many  cases 
of  women  who  suffered  nervous  breakdowns  when  the  man 
left  them  after  about  two  years  of  courtship.  The  ideal  case 
for  such  resistance  on  the  part  of  the  woman  usually  results 


I30  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

from  the  presence  of  another  man  whose  presence  excludes 
the  immediate  yielding  of  the  woman. 

We  may  say  then  that  the  tendency  wit  requires  three 
persons :  first,  the  person .  who  makes  the  wit ;  second,  the 
person  who  is  taken  as  the  object  of  the  hostile  or  sexual 
aggression ;  and  third,  the  person  in  whom  the  purpose  of  the 
with  to  produce  pleasure  is  fulfilled.  The  way  this  is  done 
may  be  described  somewhat  as  follows :  Just  as  soon  as  the 
first  person  meets  with  resistance  on  the  part  of  the  woman 
to  the  gratification  of  his  libidinous  impulse,  he  at  once 
assumes  a  hostile  attitude  toward  her  and  turns  to  the  third 
person  as  to  a  sort  of  confederate.  Through  the  obscene 
speech  the  first  person  is  able  to  expose  the  woman  before 
the  third  person  who  as  a  passive  hearer  derives  pleasure 
from  the  easy  gratification  of  his  own  libido.  The  wit 
enables,  therefore,  the  first  person  to  gratify  his  original 
lewd  or  hostile  craving,  despite  the  hindrance  which  stands 
in  the  way ;  it  enables  him  to  draw  pleasure  from  an  other- 
wise forbidden  source.  What  the  hindrance  is  is  not  hard 
to  see.  It  is  nothing  less  than  the  higher  degree  of  social 
propriety  which  makes  it  hard  for  the  woman,  and  to  a  less 
degree,  for  the  man,  to  countenance  the  bare  sexual.  With 
the  advance  of  civilization,  the  force  of  repression  became 
correspondingly  stronger  and  what  was  once  conceived  as 
pleasurable  now  appears  as  inacceptable,  and  is  rejected  by 
all  the  psychic  forces.  But  the  human  psyche  finds  absolute 
renunciation  difficult  and  it  is  through  the  medium  of  the 
tendency  wit  that  we  are  still  able  to  enjoy  many  of  those 
primary  pleasures  that  civilization  and  the  higher  education 
have  found  inacceptable.  We  may  say  accordingly  that  the 
obscene  delicate  witticism  heard  among  people  of  culture  and 
refinement  and  the  coarse  obscene  joke  of  the  ill-bred  both 
have  the  same  source  of  pleasure.  The  only  difference  is  that 
owing  to   cultural   development,   the   coarse   obscene   joke 


WIT:   ITS  TECHNIQUE  AND  TENDENCIES     131 

causes  shame  or  disgust,  the  obscene  delicate  witticism  incites 
us  to  laughter  because  wit  has  come  to  its  aid.  At  a  gathering 
of  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  the  highest  culture,  it  is  not  at 
all  uncommon  for  one  of  the  company  to  make  a  joke  so 
risque  that  were  we  to  examine  the  actual  thought  behind 
it,  we  would  in  all  probability  be  terribly  shocked,  and  order 
the  person  out  of  the  house;  but  because  it  is  given  in  the 
form  of  a  witticism,  every  one  is  fascinated  and  laughs. 

It  also  frequently  happens  that  such  wit  is  produced  by 
the  most  cultured  persons  in  an  involuntary  and  unconscious 
way.  A  gentleman  whose  words  I  have  no  reason  to  doubt 
vouches  for  the  truth  of  the  following  story :  A  well  known 
clergyman  addressed  a  women's  club  and  was  very  profuse 
in  his  praise  of  the  ladies  of  the  club  and  the  sex  in  general. 
Among  other  things  he  said :  "As  one  who  knows  the 
frailties  of  mankind  I  am  repeatedly  astounded  at  the 
strength  of  women.  In  the  face  of  the  terrible  temptations 
to  which  women  are  constantly  subjected  it  is  wonderful  at 
the  force  they  display,  yes,  it  is  wonderful  that  you  don't 
fall,  but  it  is  also  wonderful  when  you  do  fall."  The  last 
sentence  was  uttered  unconsciously.  The  ladies  were  highly 
amused  but  the  clergyman  assured  my  friend  that  he  was 
never  more  embarrassed  in  his  life.  It  was  an  echo  from 
his  unconscious  or  as  he  himself  put  it,  it  was  the  devil  in 
him  who  spoke.  For  the  devil  is  only  a  personification  of  our 
own  primitive  impulses.  Praising  the  women  for  not  falling 
was  only  a  reaction  to  his  repressed  wishes  while  he  stood 
there  exhibiting  through  speech  before  women. 

When  we  examine  the  part  the  wit  plays  in  the  service  of 
the  hostile  tendency,  we  at  once  meet  with  similar  conditions. 
Here,  too,  we  have  been  taught  from  time  immemorial  to 
repress  our  anger ;  not  only  are  we  not  allowed  to  use  violence 
against  our  enemy,  but  we  are  taught  that  it  is  bad  form 
even  to  use  insulting  language.    With  the  advance  of  civiliza- 


132  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

tion  our  hostile  feelings,  like  our  sexual  cravings,  have  had 
to  be  repressed  more  and  more.  And  though  we  have  not 
yet  reached  the  point  where  we  are  ready  to  turn  our  left 
cheek  when  we  are  smitten  on  the  right,  we  have  on  the 
whole  made  considerable  progress  in  controlling  our  hostile 
disposition.  To  be  sure,  aggression  in  conventional  form  is 
still  the  vis  a  tcrgo  of  life,  and  although  the  early  Christian 
reaction  to  the  then  existing  pagan  sadism  was  a  masochistic 
exaltation  of  humility  and  suffering,  the  Christian  nations 
have  only  formally  subscribed  to  it,  they  have  never  practiced 
it.  Indeed  those  races  who  actually  practice  the  virtues  of 
humility  and  non-resistance  have  been  treated  with  contempt 
by  the  leading  Christian  nations.  As  the  Yonkers  Statesman 
puts  it :  ''It's  alright  to  sympathise  with  the  underdog  in  a 
fight,  hut  a  fellozv  would  he  a  fool  to  bet  on  him."  But  as 
society  forbids  us  to  express  most  of  our  feelings  in  action, 
we  have  developed,  however,  as  in  the  case  of  the  sexual 
aggression,  a  new  mode  of  invective,  by  means  of  which  we 
are  able  to  enlist  the  third  person  as  a  confederate.  Through 
wit  we  are  able  to  humble  and  ridicule  our  enemy  and  thus 
obtain  the  pleasure  of  his  defeat  through  the  laughter  of 
the  third  person,  the  passive  hearer. 

The  wit  of  hostile  aggression,  then,  gives  us  the  means  to 
make  our  enemy  ridiculous,  and  wins  over  to  our  side  the 
third  person  even  though  he  may  not  at  all  be  convinced  of 
our  position.  The  anecdote  of  the  two  lawyers  mentioned 
above  illustrates  the  process  admirably.  By  way  of  another 
illustration  take  the  following  example  which  I  have  cited 
in  my  book :  ^ 

Wendell  Phillips,  according  to  the  recent  biography  by  Dr. 
Lorenzo  Sears,  was,  on  one  occasion,  lecturing  in  Ohio,  and 
while  on  a  railroad  journey  going  to  keep  one  of  his  appoint- 

'  Psychoanalysis,  Its  Theories  and  Applications.  3rd  Edit.  W.  B. 
Saunders,   Philadelphia. 


WIT:    ITS  TECHNIQUE  AND  TENDENCIES     133 

ments,  he  met  in  the  car  a  number  of  clergymen  returning 
from  some  sort  of  convention.  One  of  the  ministers  felt 
called  upon  to  approach  Mr.  Phillips,  and  asked  him,  "Are 
you  Mr.  Phillips?"  "I  am,  sir."  "Are  you  trying  to  free 
the  niggers?"  "Yes,  sir,  I  am  an  abolitionist."  "Well,  why 
do  you  preach  your  doctrines  up  here?  Why  don't  you  go 
over  into  Kentucky  ?"  "Excuse  me,"  said  Wendell  Phillips, 
"are  you  a  preacher?"  "I  am,  sir."  "Are  you  trying  to  save 
souls  from  hell  ?"  "Yes,  sir,  that's  my  business.  "Well,  why 
don't  you  go  there  ?" — ^You  can  see  how  a  witticism  like  this 
serves  more  than  disarming  a  man.  The  average  individual 
approached  in  this  fashion  would  have  in  all  likelihood  re- 
taliated with  some  such  invective  as,  "Go  to  hell,"  but  Wen- 
dell Phillips  used  the  tendency  wit,  and  expressed  in  this  way 
exactly,  though  in  an  indirect,  brilliant  way,  just  what  he 
wished  to  say!  The  minister's  behavior  was  offensive,  yet 
Wendell  Phillips,  as  a  man  of  culture,  could  not  defend 
himself  in  the  manner  of  an  ill-bred  person.  The  only  al- 
ternative that  was  left  him  was  to  take  the  affront  in  silence, 
but  wit  came  to  his  aid  and  enabled  him  to  turn  the  tables  on 
his  assailant.  By  its  means  he  not  only  disarmed  his  op- 
ponent but  fascinated  the  other  clergymen  to  such  an  extent 
that  they  were  won  over  to  his  side. 

In  summing  up  it  may  be  said  that  the  main  function  of 
wit  is  to  produce  pleasure  from  sources  that  are  otherwise 
inaccessible  to  us.  Perhaps  the  clearest  demonstration  of  this 
is  seen  in  the  fact  that  smutty  wit  is  so  often  enjoyed  by 
elderly  respectable  men  whose  position  in  society  prevents 
them  from  giving  vent  to  their  love  outlets,  and  by  persons 
who  as  a  result  of  physical  or  mental  factors  are  incapable 
of  leading  a  normal  love  hfe.  The  greatest  purveyors  of 
smutty  jokes  belong  to  this  class.  This  is  clearly  the  case 
in  tendency  wit  but  the  same  is  also  true  of  harmless  wit. 
When  we  laugh  over  Johnny's  answer  to  his  teacher  when 


134  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

he  names  the  "J^^^'^^^^d"  ^s  the  most  common  bird  in  cap- 
tivity, we  obtain  pleasure  through  our  feeling  of  superiority. 
When  an  audience  bursts  out  laughing  when  a  lady  in  the 
cast  shouts  "Go  to  hell"  it  shows  its  resentment  to  the  con- 
ventional repression  constantly  forced  upon  it  by  society. 
Just  because  a  woman  is  supposed  to  be  more  delicate  in 
expression  than  a  gentleman  one  is  sure  to  be  happy  when 
she  uses  a  profane  expletive  on  the  stage.  It  represents 
the  height  of  social  violations.  So  also  one  is  terribly  jarred 
to  hear  that  no  less  a  personage  than  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
very  fond  of  vulgar  wit,  a  fact  which  gave  his  biographers 
no  little  amount  of  worry.  They  seem  to  be  puzzled  at  this 
crass  incompatibility  and  find  it  extremely  difficult  to  explain 
it.  Thus  Mr.  Leonard  Swett,  Lincoln's  political  associate 
and  later  a  United  States  Attorney  General,  states :  "Almost 
any  man  who  will  tell  a  vulgar  story  has  in  a  degree  a  vulgar 
mind.  But  it  was  not  so  with  him;  with  all  his  purity  of 
character  and  exalted  morality  and  sensibility,  which  no  man 
can  doubt,  when  hunting  for  wit  he  had  no  ability  to  dis- 
criminate between  the  vulgar  and  refined  substances  from 
which  he  extracted  it.  It  was  the  wit  he  was  after,  the  pure 
jewel ;  and  he  would  pick  it  up  out  of  the  mud  or  dirt  just 
as  readily  as  from  the  parlor  table."  Lord  Charnwood,  from 
whose  work  on  Abraham  Lincoln  the  above  is  taken,  states : 
"In  any  case  his  best  remembered  utterances  of  this  order 
were  least  fit  for  print,  were  both  wise  and  incomparably 
witty,  and  in  any  case  they  did  not  prevent  grave  gentlemen 
who  marvelled  at  them  rather  uncomfortably  from  receiving 
the  deep  impression  of  what  they  called  his  pure-minded- 
ness."  The  trouble  with  most  biographers  is  that  they  always 
leave  out  what  they  consider  the  un-nice  parts  of  their  ideals, 
forgetting  that  no  matter  how  exalted  a  human  being  may 
become  he  is  still  very  human  in  all  his  thoughts  and  actions. 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  essentially  a  very  aggressive  man,  he 


WIT:    ITS  TECHNIQUE  AND  TENDENCIES     135 

was  a  fighter  and  known  as  such ;  any  one  reading  his  Hfe  can 
readily  see  how  this  "naughty"  aggressive  boy  brought  up 
in  wild  pioneer  days  had  to  overcome  enormous  primitive 
forces  to  become  sublimated  into  the  ideal  being  we  know 
him  to  be.  Strong  and  aggressive  he  remained  all  his  life 
time,  and  we  know  that  aggression  in  life  also  means  sexual 
aggression.  This  is  just  what  one  fails  to  find  in  Abraham 
Lincoln.  Unlike  so  many  other  great  personages  there  was 
no  sex  gossip  about  him.  On  the  other  hand,  those  who 
understand  the  psychic  forces  of  human  reactions  cannot  fail 
to  see  many  things  in  his  life  which  point  to  strong  psycho- 
sexual  repression.  Perhaps  by  way  of  contrast  one  is  forcibly 
reminded  of  another  ideal  character.  I  am  referring  to  King 
David,  who  is  not  only  so  regarded  by  the  Jews  but  also  by 
Christians  and  Mohammedans.  The  great  psalmist  was  also 
a  very  aggressive  and  pious  man,  but  at  the  height  of  his 
glory  he  did  not  hesitate  to  commit  the  sexual  crime  with 
Mrs.  Uriah,  the  lawful  wife  of  one  of  his  active  generals 
whom  he  ordered  to  be  killed  in  order  to  escape  the  wrath  of 
this  outraged  husband.  Well,  the  Lord  sent  his  prophet 
Nathan,  who  gave  him  a  good  calling  down  for  it.  David 
wrote  a  psalm  which  has  been  repeated  ever  since  by  devout 
sinners,  and  then  married  the  lady  in  question.  Nowadays 
not  even  a  successful  king  could  get  away  so  lightly  with  such 
an  affair.  Psalms  or  no  psalms,  all  modern  men  must  re- 
nounce much  of  their  sex  aggression.  Lincoln  wrote  the 
famous  address  at  the  dedication  of  the  Gettysburg  National 
Cemetery,  he  could  not  write  any  psalms  because  he  was  not 
conscious  of  committing  adultery.  But  yet  he  was  a  very 
repressed  being  and  one  of  his  outlets  was  coprohilic  wit 
of  aggression.  Perhaps  if  the  biographers  would  have  kept 
a  record  of  those  pithy  but  indelicate  Lincoln  jokes  it  might 
have  helped  some  equally  minded  but  repressed  individuals 
to  leave  behind  great  names  instead  of  repeat  King  David's 


136  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

psalm  and  remain  disgraced  forever.  For  in  order  to  be 
happy  one  must  nowadays  get  some  substitute  for  reality. 
The  substitute  may  in  itself  be  a  bit  shocking  but  it  is  much 
better  for  the  individual  and  society  than  to  follow  reality. 
Which  recalls  the  following  joke: 

A  missionary  -was  shipwrecked  near  what  he  imagined 
was  a  cannibal  island.  He  was  in  mortal  terror  of  the 
savages  so  that  he  retnained  in  the  thickest  part  of  the  forest. 
One  day  he  suddenly  heard  voices,  he  became  terrified,  think- 
ing that  his  end  was  near.  He  listened  tensely  and  heard: 
"What  in  hell  did  you  play  this  card  for!"  He  got  on  his 
knees,  raised  his  hands  in  prayer  and  said:  "Thank  the 
Lord  they  are  Christians." 

Now  the  missionary  recognized  the  Christians  by  the  fact 
that  they  cursed  and  gambled,  the  cannibals  could  do  no 
such  things.  But  then  the  cannibal  needs  no  such  substitutes. 
He  lives  his  natural  life  without  much  repression.  He  kills 
or  is  killed  as  the  case  may  be,  so  that  he  needs  no  cursing 
as  substitutes,  he  does  not  expect  anything  for  nothing  so  he 
needs  no  gambling.  He  is  just  like  the  child  in  this  regard ; 
when  the  child  begins  to  develop  a  sense  of  humor  and  begins 
to  curse  it  is  already  alive  to  the  burdens  of  civilization;  it 
is  already  repressing  and  compromises  on  substitutes. 
Smutty  jokes  are  nothing  but  substitutes  for  natural  sex. 
For  years  I  have  asked  my  patients  to  tell  the  best  jokes  they 
ever  heard.  I  don't  ask  this  question  until  I  am  sure  that 
the  patient  will  tell  me  exactly  what  comes  to  his  mind. 
Most  of  the  answers  were  obtained  from  ladies  and  gentle- 
men of  the  highest  type.  I  have  read  some  of  the  answers 
before  a  group  of  scientific  men  and  they  enjoyed  hearing 
them,  but  they  all  agreed  with  me  that,  like  most  of  the 
Lincoln  witticisms,  not  one  of  these  jokes  was  fit  to  print. 

When  one  watches  the  trend  of  the  times  one  observes 
that  as  soon  as  a  new  taboo  comes  into  existence  one  is  sure 


WIT:    ITS  TECHNIQUE  AND  TENDENCIES     137 

to  hear  all  sorts  of  jokes  cracked  about  it.  It  is  for  the  same 
reason  that  government  and  marriage  furnish  so  much  ma- 
terial for  wit.  Both  are  artificial  institutions  which  the 
average  individual  finds  hard  to  bear,  and  as  marriage,  which 
is  only  a  phase  of  sex,  touches  more  vitally  the  individual 
than  any  other  cultural  institution,  it  is  the  principal  theme 
in  wit.  Although  long  accepted  as  an  absolutely  necessary 
state  in  the  life  of  every  normal  person  it  is  forever  criticized 
and  blamed.  The  following  illustration  sums  up  the  situa- 
tion: 

Same  Symptoms 

Simpson  (greeting  his  old  friend)  :  "Why,  Jones,  it's 
ages  since  I  saw  you  last.    Married  now,  aren't  you?" 

Jones:  "No,  no,  old  man,  it's  not  that.  Just  business 
worry  and  nerves." — (The  Bulletin — Sydney.) 

In  describing  some  of  the  more  important  mechanisms  of 
wit,  my  main  purpose  was  to  pave  the  way  for  the  psycho- 
logical mechanisms  of  the  dream.  There  are  many  resem- 
blances between  the  two  psychic  phenomena,  both  in  technique 
and  formation.  Such  mechanism  as  condensation,  displace- 
ment, etc.,  play  no  small  part  in  the  technique  of  wit,  and 
as  we  shall  see  in  the  following  chapters,  they  are  found 
also  in  the  technique  of  dreams.  We  regard  them  as  quite 
natural  processes  in  wit  only  because  we  are  so  much  more 
accustomed  to  wit  than  to  dreams.  The  formation  of  wit 
resembles  also  the  formation  of  dreams :  both  are  uncon- 
scious psychic  activities.  Wit,  like  the  dream,  is  an  invol- 
untary mental  occurrence.  That  is  why  one  cannot  tell  a 
moment  before  what  joke  one  is  going  to  crack.  The  above 
cited  witticism  made  by  the  divine  addressing  the  ladies' 
club  nicely  illustrates  this  mechanism. 

But  there  are  also  some  differences  between  the  dream  and 
the  wit.  The  most  important  of  these  is  that  wit  is  a  social 
product ;  it  often  requires  three  persons,  and  in  its  tendency. 


138  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

always  requires  the  participation  of  at  least  one  other  person. 
The  dream,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  perfect  individual  psychic 
function,  it  is  of  the  most  personal  character  and  has  no 
interest  whatever  for  the  outside  world ;  one  likes  to  hear 
a  good  joke  but  unless  one  knows  the  meaning  of  dreams,  he 
is  bored  to  distraction  when  they  are  recited  by  the  fellow 
boarder  at  the  breakfast  table. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  DREAM:    ITS  FUNCTION  AND  MOTIVE 

"I  believe  it  to  be  true  that  dreams  are  the  true  interpreters  of  our 
inclinations,  but  there  is  art  required  to  sort  and  understand  them." 

— Montaigne. 

Hitherto  we  have  dwelt  on  those  mechanisms  that  we 
find  both  in  the  normal  and  abnormal  spheres,  the  mechan- 
isms that  may  be  readily  explained  on  a  normal  basis.  We 
shall  now  enter  upon  the  subject  of  dreams,  which,  though 
observed  in  every  normal  person,  present  nevertheless  a 
departure  from  normal  conscious  processes.  The  dream  has 
always  been  a  subject  of  great  interest  and  from  time  im- 
memorial has  received  considerable  speculation.  We  find 
allusion  to  it  in  all  the  earliest  writings,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  literature  of  modern  times  in  which  it  receives  an  ever 
increasing  amount  of  attention. 

It  is  noteworthy  what  a  variety  of  ideas  one  meets  in  the 
literature  on  the  subject.  Some  of  them,  I  am  glad  to  say, 
show  some  signs  of  logic;  the  late  literature  is  particularly 
useful  and  instructive  in  that  definite  problems  have  been 
investigated.  Most  of  the  material,  however,  is  woefully 
deficient  of  any  clear  or  definite  conception  of  the  nature  or 
meaning  of  the  dream.  You  may  all  know  that  the  ancients 
attributed  it  to  some  altogether  external  force;  it  was  either 
a  demon  or  God  himself  that  was  responsible  for  it.  The 
scriptures  tell  us  that  "What  God  is  about  to  do,  he  showeth 
unto  Pharaoh."  To  the  Greeks  there  were  good  and  evil 
deities  that  presided  over  it.    These  views  have  come  down 

139 


I40  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

to  us  traditionally,  and  we  may  say  that  the  present  popular 
belief  in  dreams  differs  in  no  respect  from  that  of  the 
classical  Greeks  and  the  ancient  Egyptians.  It  is  also  note- 
worthy that  the  laity  still  continues  to  believe  in  their  im- 
portance. In  Europe  it  is  quite  common  for  people  gambling 
on  lotteries  to  have  a  little  dream  book  which  gives  both 
interpretations  and  corresponding  numbers.  They  play  the 
numbers  corresponding  to  the  dream,  and  if  they  win,  it  is 
the  dream  to  which  they  attribute  their  success. 

Everybody  dreams,  and  those  who  think  they  do  not  dream 
may  be  easily  convinced  to  the  contrary  by  a  very  simple 
External  experiment.  Make  up  your  mind  on  retiring 
Internal  ^^^^^  ^^  ^^^  ^^^^^  ^  dream  you  will  recall  it,  and 
stnnuu  yQu    ^iii    undoubtedly   be   convinced    the    next 

Dreams  morning  that  you  are  no  exception  to  the  rule. 
I  have  known  many  people  who,  at  first,  insisted  that  they 
do  not  dream  but  who  soon  had  to  admit  that  they  were 
mistaken. 

There  are  those  who  believe  that  dreams  are  caused  by  a 
disturbance  of  the  stomach.  How  grossly  untrue  this  con- 
ception is  may  readily  be  seen  from  a  careful  study  and 
observation  of  one's  dreams.  The  condition  of  the  stomach 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  psychic  determinant  of  the  dream, 
though  it  is  true  that  the  dream  may  be  more  easily  recalled 
if  the  sleep  is  disturbed.  For  it  is  then  that  the  dreamer 
is  thrown  into  a  state  commonly  designated  as  the  dreamy, 
or  crepuscular,  state  which  is  most  conducive  to  the  remem- 
bering of  the  dream.  This  fact  accounts  for  the  popular 
conception:  people  generally  have  observed  that  they  dream 
when  their  sleep  is  disturbed  and  have,  therefore,  associated 
the  origin  of  the  phenomenon  with  the  condition  of  the 
stomach. 

There  is  no  doubt,  however,  that  internal  and  external 
stimuli  give  rise  to  dreams.     Attend,  for  instance,  to  your 


THE  DREAM:   ITS  FUNCTION  AND  MOTIVE  141 

alarm  dock  and  you  will  find  usually  on  awaking  that  you 
have  dreamed.  But  these  stimuli  do  not  determine  the 
psychic  content  of  the  dream,  they  merely  serve  as  dream 
inciters.  It  is  a  well  known  fact,  borne  out  by  the  experi- 
ments of  many  investigators  in  this  field,  that  the  same 
stimulus  may  incite  different  dreams  at  different  times  and 
in  different  individuals.  Thus  with  an  alarm  clock  acting  as 
a  stimulus  one  person  may  see  himself  going  to  church  on 
an  early  Sunday  morning  and  hear  the  church  bells  ringing, 
while  another  person  may  see  a  wagon  full  of  tin  cans  and 
an  automobile  colliding  with  it.  What  is  highly  significant 
to  note  here  is  that  a  short  stimulus  may  produce  a  dream 
which  will  often  require  a  half  hour  to  describe. 

There  was  an  interesting  discussion  a  number  of  years 
ago  in  the  Revue  Philosophiqite  in  Paris  on  a  dream  that  the 
dreamer  described  as  follows:  It  was  during  the  French 
Revolution ;  he  saw  himself  present  at  a  session  of  the 
National  Convention ;  many  royal  personages  were  brought 
before  it,  tried  and  condemned  to  die.  He  could  see  how 
they  were  being  led  away  on  the  cabriolets,  placed  on  the 
guillotine  and  beheaded.  Suddenly  he  himself  was  arrested, 
having  been  accused  of  some  crime.  He  appeared  before 
the  Convention,  defended  himself,  remembering  the  speech 
that  he  made,  how  he  argued  with  the  public  prosecutor,  and 
how  finally  he  was  sentenced  to  death.  He  was  hurried 
off  on  the  tumbrel,  then  taken  from  the  prison  to  the 
guillotine.  His  head  was  placed  on  the  block,  he  felt  the 
blade  strike  the  back  of  his  neck,  and  presently  he  awoke 
to  find  that  a  board  of  the  bed  fell  and  struck  him  on  the 
back  of  the  neck. 

The  question  that  naturally  arises  here  is :  "How  is  it  that 
so  short  a  stimulus  produced  so  long  a  dreg^m?  How  long 
did  the  dream  take,  how  was  it  possible  to  crowd  all  that 
material  which  required  so  much  time  to  write  down,  into  a 


142  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

space  of  apparently  a  few  seconds  ?"  The  board  struck  him, 
he  awoke,  and  remembered  the  dream.  Many  explanations 
were  presented,  but  with  the  exception  of  Prof.  Freud 
who  has  succeeded  in  unravelling  the  secret  of  the  dream 
generally,  none  of  the  writers  really  explained  the  mechan- 
ism. Analysis  reveals  that  the  dreamer  was  a  Frenchman. 
As  a  boy  he  read  the  French  Revolution,  and  like  all  boys, 
lived  right  through  this  stirring  and  romantic  period.  I  have 
already  drawn  your  attention,  I  think,  in  another  connection 
to  the  psychic  mechanism  of  identification,  by  virtue  of  which 
we  read  ourselves  into  a  situation  of  marked  affective  con- 
tent or  live  through  the  life  of  an  individual  whom  we  love 
or  admire.  In  reading  we  usually  select  the  hero  or  heroine 
upon  whom  we  fix  this  marked  interest;  sometimes,  too,  I 
am  bold  enough  to  say,  we  may  even  identify  ourselves  with 
the  villain.  We  feel  deeply  with  whatever  individual  we 
identify  ourselves  with;  we  are  with  him  in  his  moments  of 
profound  sorrow  and  joy,  we  live  his  life,  as  it  were.  It  is 
nothing  unusual  to  see  one  weep  in  the  theater  at  some 
serious  turn  of  fortune  in  the  story  of  our  "favorite"  char- 
acter. This  mode  of  projecting  ourselves  into  the  lives  of 
others,  this  profound  and  powerful  sense  of  sympathy  with 
their  deeper  experiences  is  quite  unconscious  and  continues 
throughout  life.  A  little  boy  reading  about  Indians  may 
identify  himself  with  the  brave  and  virtuous  Indian,  or 
with  the  scout.  Many  women  have  come  under  my  notice 
whose  whole  course  of  life  was  determined  by  a  certain  book 
or  series  of  books  by  a  particular  author;  unconsciously  and 
sometimes  even  consciously  they  governed  their  lives  accord- 
ing to  the  characters  depicted  in  the  story,  particularly  ac- 
cording to  some  special  character  that  strongly  appealed  to 
them.  Now  the  identification  mechanism  enables  us  to 
endow  every  scene,  every  situation  that  appeals  to  us  with 
a  certain  emotional  warmth  and  tone.    We  may  only  seem- 


THE  DREAM:   ITS  FUNCTION  AND  MOTIVE  143 

ingly  forget  a  situation  that  once  had  profoundly  stirred  us, 
but  it  always  remains  in  the  unconscious ;  it  has  rooted  itself 
in  our  inmost  thoughts  and  feelings,  it  has  become  a  part  of 
us.  Any  conscious  or  unconscious  association  may  bring  it 
back  to  the  mind  with  all  its  former  vividness.  That  is 
what  happened  in  the  case  of  the  dreamer.  As  a  boy  he  read 
the  story  of  the  Revolution  with  breathless  interest.  The 
unfortunates  who  were  guillotined  particularly  impressed 
him;  he  absorbed  to  the  full  the  pathos,  the  horror,  the 
terrible  meaning  of  the  situation.  And  now  when  the  board 
fell  on  the  back  of  his  neck,  it  recalled,  by  association,  the 
whole  situation,  in  all  its  vividness  and  with  all  its  attending 
emotions.  The  thoughts  and  feelings  associated  with  the 
execution  were  registered  in  the  mind  and  were  now  brought 
to  the  surface  by  this  external  stimulus.  The  action  was 
similar  to  what  we  find  in  the  theater :  the  stage  manager 
pushes  the  button  and  the  scene  shifter  brings  on  the  ap- 
propriate scene.  The  external  stimulus,  by  an  accidental 
association,  served  to  bring  into  play  a  whole  group  of 
formerly  accentuated  ideas  and  emotions. 

Internal  stimuli  act  in  the  same  way.  If,  for  instance, 
you  experience  certain  sensations  in  your  stomach  to-day 
that  you  had  five  years  ago,  the  likelihood  is  that  your  dreams 
will  have  a  resemblance  in  some  way  to  those  of  the  former 
period.  When  we  bear  this  in  mind,  we  do  not  have  to 
resort  to  supernatural  causes  to  account  for  the  fact  that 
some  people  can  foretell  by  a  certain  dream  that  they  are 
going  to  be  sick.  Long  before  one  is  conscious  of  his  sick- 
ness, long  before,  for  instance,  the  mucous  membrane  of  the 
nose  and  throat  becomes  so  swollen  that  it  begins  to  run  and 
ache,  the  congestion  starts  and  arouses  associations  in  the 
mind  which  recall  some  similar  situation  in  the  past.  That 
is  enough  to  cause  the  individual  to  dream  of  the  sickness. 
One  woman  actually  had  the  same  type  of  dream  every  time 


144  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

before  she  got  a  cold  in  the  head,  as  she  called  it.  We 
observe  this  phenomenon  under  different  forms  in  every-day 
life.  Patients  in  speaking  to  me  of  certain  ailments,  let  us 
say,  periodic  headaches,  may  often  tell  me  how  glad  they 
are  that  they  did  not  have  the  headache  for  the  last  three 
months.  I  am  not  at  all  pleased  to  hear  this,  for  I  know 
that  the  fact  that  they  thought  of  it  is  already  an  indication 
that  it  is  coming  on,  but  that  it  has  not  as  yet  manifested 
ilself  to  consciousness.  To  be  sure,  I  learn  the  next  day 
that  the  headache  has  arrived.  A  disease  does  not  manifest 
itself  suddenly ;  long  before  the  person  consciously  knows 
that  he  is  sick,  he  experiences,  though  vaguely,  some  feeling 
of  depression  or  uneasiness  that  carries  with  it  a  sense  of 
foreboding  to  those  who  are  ignorant  of  the  psychological 
significance  of  the  condition.  That  undoubtedly  accounts 
for  the  fact  that  both  among  primitive  and  modern  people 
the  sneeze  was  always  greeted  with  some  formula  that  sig- 
nified the  wish  to  avert  evil.  Undoubtedly  primitive  man 
learned  empirically  that  whenever  he  began  to  sneeze  some 
disease  would  follow,  because  practically  all  serious  diseases 
begin  with  coryza.  One  has  a  right  to  believe  that  primitive 
man  had  less  chance  to  overcome  such  diseases  as  pneumonia 
and  other  infectious  or  contagious  diseases  than  his  modern 
brother,  and  as  sneezing  was  invariably  followed  by  disease 
which  often  ended  fatally,  primitive  man  naturally  tried  to 
stop  it  through  incantations.  I  feel  that  this  really  explains 
the  sneezing  ceremonial  in  a  much  simpler  way  and  is  nearer 
to  the  truth  than  the  explanation  offered  by  Dr.  Wallace  in 
his  interesting  dissertation  on  "The  Romance  and  the 
Tragedy  of   Sneezing."  ^ 

In  physical,  as  well  as  in  mental  life,  a  certain  stimulus 
is  required  before  a  certain  reaction  is  produced.  I  am  sure 
that  those  of  you  who  have  studied  academic  psychology 

^Scientific  Monthly,  Vol.  9,  No.  6. 


THE  DREAM:   ITS  FUNCTION  AND  MOTIVE  i'4S 

will  recall  the  Weber-Fechner  law  of  the  relation  of  stimulus 
to  intensity  of  sensation, — the  intensity  of  the  one  being 
directly  proportional  to  the  intensity  of  the  other.  One  of 
the  experiments  that  we  perform  in  the  examination  of 
patients,  particularly  when  we  wish  to  determine  their  degree 
of  attention,  is  to  expose  pictures  to  them  very  rapidly,  the 
exposure  lasting  only  a  few  seconds.  We  then  ask  them 
to  tell  us  what  they  observed.  A  great  many  will  declare 
at  first  that  they  saw  nothing,  but  upon  urging  them  to  tell 
you  what  comes  to  their  mind,  they  invariably  will  mention 
something  that  has  a  more  or  less  fundamental  resemblance 
to  the  picture.  I  show  a  person  a  Japanese  scene,  and  he 
declares  at  first  that  he  saw  nothing.  I  urge  him  to  reflect, 
and  he  soon  replies,  "Well,  I  think  of  China."  You  see  that 
he  noted  the  resemblance,  although  he  has  not  consciously 
seen  the  picture.  In  order  to  be  heard,  I  do  not  have  to 
speak  to  you  here,  for  instance,  as  loudly  as  I  would  have  to 
in  the  subway.  But  if  I  whisper  here,  you  may  not  hear 
me,  but  the  stimulus  is  present,  the  sound  is  here.  In  other 
words,  I  may  say  that  before  you  see,  you  have  already 
seen,  before  you  hear,  you  have  already  heard,  but  the  stimu- 
lus was  not  sufficiently  strong  to  make  you  feel  conscious  of 
the  sensation. 

Incidentally,  I  may  say  that  if  you  remember  this  impor- 
tant law  in  psychology,  you  will  be  able  to  understand  many 
of  the  occurrences  to  which  people  generally  attribute  so 
much  importance.  You  are  often  asked  to  explain,  for 
example,  how  it  is  that  when  you  talk  of  Mr.  Brown,  he  is 
sure  to  appear.  The  fact  is  that  you  either  saw  or  heard 
Mr.  Brown  before  you  talked  about  him.  Let  us  remember 
that  our  senses  tell  us  much  more  than  we  generally  sup- 
pose, and  though  we  have  little  confidence  in  them,  they 
still  operate,  and  render  us  knowledge  long  before  we  are 


146  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

really  conscious  of  it.  You  may  be  on  the  avenue  speaking 
to  your  friend,  when  somebody  passes  who  has  aroused 
certain  associations  in  your  brain.  You  begin  to  talk  about 
him,  although  you  have  not  consciously  seen  him,  and  sud- 
denly, to  your  great  surprise,  he  stands  there  before  you  in 
his  own  flesh  and  blood.  "Talk  of  the  devil,  and  he  is  sure 
to  appear."  But  he  has  been  there  in  your  field  of  vision 
long  before  you  actually  saw  him. 

But  I  may  be  reminded:  "I  talked  about  a  man  while 
being  in  the  house  and  to  be  sure,  he  came  in."  Usually  we 
can  hear  the  person  approaching,  and  I  still  have  to  find  the 
person  who  knows  somebody  well,  but  cannot  recognize  the 
latter's  footsteps.  At  home  we  can  always  tell  who  is  coming, 
whether  mother,  father,  or  some  other  intimate  person.  We 
may  also  explain  on  this  basis  such  occurrences  as  find  ex- 
pression in  the  following  characteristic  remark :  "How  do 
you  account  for  my  receiving  a  letter  from  a  woman  whom 
I  have  not  heard  from  for  a  long  time,  and  strange,  I  talked 
about  her  only  yesterday?"  When  you  investigate  you  find 
that  there  is  a  similar  mechanism  involved,  that  the  situation 
presents  nothing  at  all  mysterious  or  psychic.  You  have 
established  a  certain  connection  in  your  mind  between  that 
person  and  yourself.  At  about  that  period  you  think  of  a 
sudden  of  that  individual  by  virtue  of  a  psychic  process  to 
which  I  have  already  drawn  your  attention  under  the  term 
of  "Post-hypnotic  suggestion ;"  that  is  to  say,  at  the  expira- 
tion of  a  certain  time,  a  certain  impression  received  in  the 
past  will  recur,  and  revive  an  old  association. 

The  underlying  nature  and  meaning  of  the  dream  was 
not  known  until  Prof.  Freud  propounded  his  theories.  All 
sorts  of  interpretations  were  presented  but  there  was  no 
general,  fundamental  conception.  In  analyzing  his  patients 
Freud  found  that  they  all  dreamed  and  the  question  pre- 
sented itself,  "Are  dreams  psychic  mechanisms  or  do  they 


THE  DREAM:    ITS  FUNCTION  AND  MOTIVE  147 

represent  sheer  nonsense,  having  no  relation  to  the  in- 
dividual's psychic  life?"  The  answer  involved  a  funda- 
mental conception;  everything  both  in  physical  and  mental 
life  has  a  reason ;  as  in  the  physical,  so  in  the  psychic  sphere, 
there  is  nothing  that  has  not  some  function.  We 
have  tears,  not  merely  to  weep,  but  to  keep  the  Bream 
eyes  constantly  moist  to  wash  them;  otherwise  Guardian 
they  would  be  coated  with  dust  that  would  make  °  *^^ 
it  impossible  for  us  to  see.  We  have  sweat  glands  in  order  to 
equalize  the  temperature  of  the  body,  and  saliva  to  assist  in 
deglution  and  digestion  generally.  In  the  same  way  every 
psychic  function  has  its  raison  d'etre.  The  question  then, 
was  "Why  do  we  dream  ?"  He  thoroughly  investigated  the 
literature  on  the  subject  but  it  was  not  there  that  the  answer 
was  to  be  found.  It  was  only  as  he  delved  deeper  and 
deeper  into  the  symptom  and  saw  its  profound  intimate 
connection  with  the  dream,  that  he  was  approaching  a  solu- 
tion of  the  problem.  He  began  to  see  that  the  dream  is  a 
perfect  psychic  mechanism,  that  it  is  not  at  all  arbitrary,  but 
that  it  has  a  definite  relation  to  the  individual's  psychic  life. 
The  deeper  he  probed  the  dream,  the  more  did  its  wisdom 
and  underlying  senses  of  order  grow  upon  him,  until  finally 
he  formulated  the  thesis  that  "a  dream  is  the  hidden  fulfill- 
ment of  a  repressed  wish."  In  other  words,  a  dream  is  a 
wish  that  the  individual  could  not  realize  in  the  waking  state. 
Now  before  dilating  on  this  conclusion,  let  me  go  back  to 
the  function  of  the  dream.  During  the  day  we  all  think  of 
a  host  of  things ;  I  am  sure  I  am  not  exaggerating  when  I 
say  that  hundreds  and  hundreds  of  thoughts  run  through 
the  mind ;  they  glide  by  and  we  are  not  even  conscious  of 
them.  But  there  are  always  some  problems  coming  up  that 
absorb  us.  It  is  well  known  that  if  any  question  should  con- 
tinue to  engage  our  attention  to  a  marked  degree,  it  would 
be  impossible  for  us  to  fall  asleep.     We  are  all  aware  that 


148  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

any  strong  or  poignant  emotion,  whether  it  be  one  of  pleasure 
or  pain,  may  keep  one  awake.  An  individual  who  is  elated 
does  not  wish  to  sleep,  and  for  that  matter,  cannot  sleep,  be- 
cause his  senses  are  too  alive  and  high-strung.  To  sleep  it  is 
necessary  to  exclude  all  sensations  from  all  organs.  We  go 
to  bed  so  that  we  may  relax;  the  lights  are  turned  out  in 
order  to  exclude  all  sensory  stimulations.  Experiment  has 
demonstrated  that  sleep  is  usually  induced  when  sensations 
are  thus  excluded.  All  sensory  impressions  have  been  shut 
out  from  animals  and  sleep  usually  followed.  Thus,  when 
there  is  any  problem  engrossing  the  mind,  the  tendency  is  not 
to  fall  asleep.  Now  what  are  the  things  that  would  keep  us 
awake  ?  They  are  usually  those  that  we  have  not  been  able  to 
attain,  or  those  we  have  not  been  able  to  solve.  One  works  out 
a  problem,  thinking  to  himself:  "If  I  can  put  that  through, 
I  will  be  fortunate:  my  future  will  be  assured.  If  I  cannot 
execute  it,  I  do  not  know  what  I  am  to  do :  I  will  lose  my 
position  and  will  not  be  able  to  take  care  of  my  family." 
He  goes  to  bed  and  dwells  on  the  problem.  He  would 
probably  continue  with  it  throughout  the  whole  night  were  it 
not  for  his  wish  to  sleep.  What  actually  happens  then  is 
that  the  mind  takes  the  problem  and  weaves  it  into  a  dream. 
The  dream  then  realizes  the  wish  and  thus  makes  sleep  pos- 
sible. 

In  every-day  life  we  know  that  once  a  question  is  solved, 
there  is  no  further  need  for  preoccupation  with  it.  It  is 
merely  a  matter  of  how  to  solve  an  existing  problem.  A 
child  goes  to  sleep,  crying;  it  wants  a  doll.  The  mother 
quickly  appeases  it  by  granting  the  wish.  So  far  so  good; 
but  this  same  child  has  now  grown  older  and  wants  some- 
thing that  the  mother  cannot  so  easily  secure.  Now  it  has 
to  go  without  it,  but  as  it  wishes  to  sleep,  the  problem  is 
solved  in  a  different  way.  Nature  assures  our  rest  by 
seemingly  granting  us  our  wishes.    The  child  now  dreams 


THE  DREAM:   ITS  FUNCTION  AND  MOTIVE  149 

that  it  has  obtained  what  it  was  refused  in  reality.  Like- 
wise, if  you  should  go  to  bed  to-night  after  eating  a  very 
salty  supper,  you  will  undoubtedly  desire  water  at  night,  but 
instead  of  waking  up,  particularly  if  the  room  is  cold,  you 
will  dream  that  you  are  slaking  your  thirst  with  some  re- 
freshing water,  or  if  you  are  more  fortunately  constituted, 
with  some  stronger  and  more  inviting  beverage.  This  is  a 
very  common  "convenience"  dream.  If  you  retire  hungry, 
you  will  invariably  dream  that  you  are  eating.  I  spoke  to 
Professor  Macmillan  who  went  with  Peary  to  the  North 
Pole  and  he  told  me  what  great  pleasure  they  had  experi- 
enced in  their  dreams.  The  reason  is  quite  clear.  These  men 
who  had  known  the  delicacies  of  New  York  restaurants,  were 
compelled  to  live  on  pemmican  and  a  simple  Arctic  Zone  diet. 
They  dreamed  of  the  things  they  were  anxious  to  have.  They 
smoked  fine  cigars  and  drank  highballs  in  their  sleep.  Chil- 
dren invariably  show  that  they  dream  of  those  things  that 
they  cannot  have  in  the  waking  state.  Children's  dreams  and 
the  so-called  convenience  dreams  of  adults  are  thus  open 
wishes.  When  the  dreams,  however,  are  not  of  this  type,  the 
situation  is  quite  different,  and  it  is  here  that  we  encounter 
serious  difficulties  in  understanding  them. 

To  appreciate  how  the  dream  acts  as  the  guardian  of 
sleep,  consider  with  me  the  following  case  of  a  business  man 
who  had  been  with  his  firm  for  a  number  of  years,  whose 
ability  was  recognized,  but  for  whom  there  was  manifestly 
no  real  place  in  the  proposed  reorganization  of  the  business. 
In  order  to  remain  in  the  new  organization  he  must  show  that 
he  can  be  a  factor  in  it,  that  there  is  a  special  department 
that  he  can  manage ;  otherwise  he  realizes  that  he  will  have 
to  lose  his  position.  He  evolves  a  scheme  which  he  is  to 
present  the  next  morning  before  the  board  of  trustees.  He 
goes  to  bed,  constantly  thinking  of  the  matter :  he  sees  him- 
self before  the  board,  he  anticipates  the  arguments  of  his 


I50  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

two  opponents,  he  wonders  what  best  reply  to  make.  The 
clock  strikes,  one,  two,  and  three,  but  he  is  still  awake.  Finally 
exhausted,  he  falls  asleep  and  has  the  following  dream: 
He  is  swimming  in  the  New  York  Bay  on  a  board  which  he 
is  able  to  manipulate  just  as  if  it  were  an  excellent  motor 
boat.  The  steamers  are  going  and  coming,  but  he  is  by  no 
means  disconcerted:  every  time  a  big  boat  approaches,  he 
very  deftly  steers  out  of  its  course,  or  rides  over  the  waves 
with  ease  and  pleasure.  He  is  enjoying  the  stvim  immensely. 
He  awoke  with  a  feeling  of  satisfaction.  When  he  came  to 
me  the  next  day,  he  wondered  what  sort  of  wish  his  dream 
could  represent.  I  reminded  him  at  once  that  the  dream  is 
not  always  an  open  wish  but  a  hidden  realization  of  a  re- 
pressed wish.  The  interpretation  is  simple  enough.  He 
was  to  appear  the  next  day,  as  I  said,  before  the  board  of 
trustees  to  lay  before  it  his  plans  for  the  reorganization  of 
the  business ;  he  knew  that  unless  he  could  convince  them  to 
accept  his  scheme,  he  would  lose  his  position.  He  knew 
furthermore,  that  some  members  of  the  board  were  antago- 
nistic to  him  and  would  raise  objections  regardless  of  what- 
ever plans  he  proposed ;  on  the  other  hand,  he  wa^  aware  that 
most  of  the  members  were  favorably  disposed  toward  him. 
It  was  some  time  before  he  fell  asleep,  because  his  mind  was 
constantly  dwelling  on  the  whole  situation.  He  would  have 
remained  awake  throughout  the  night,  but  as  he  was  tired  and 
wished  to  sleep,  the  disturbing  problem  had  to  be  solved  in 
some  way.  This  could  only  be  effected  by  weaving  his 
emotionally  accentuated  ideas  into  a  dream  which  represented 
his  wish  as  accomplished.  When  I  asked  him  what  his 
dream  recalled  he  told  me  he  used  to  engage,  as  a  boy,  in 
swimming  races  on  boards  on  the  Ohio  River,  in  which  he 
was  highly  proficient.  And  so  you  see,  because  he  was 
thinking  of  how  to  control  the  board,  a  situation  in  the  past 
presented  itself  to  him  in  vvdiich  he  actually  managed  boards 


THE  DREAM:   ITS  FUNCTION  AND  MOTIVE  151 

skilfully  and  won.  The  mechanism  of  "double  entendre," 
double  meaning  of  a  word,  reproduced  in  his  mind  a  scene 
from  boyhood  in  which  he  had  perfect  control  of  a  board. 
It  was  a  different  board,  to  be  sure,  but  that  made  little 
difference  in  the  unconscious,  the  important  thing  was  that 
he  was  able  to  guide  it  through  all  obstacles.  The  dream  not 
only  enabled  him  to  sleep  but  the  pain  of  to-morrow's  un- 
certainty was  replaced  by  pleasant  feelings  of  his  remote 
past.  Thus  the  dream  was  the  producer  as  well  as  the 
guardian  of  sleep. 

From  the  above  dream  we  may  see  the  first  difficulty  in 
dream  analysis,  viz.,  that  the  language  of  the  dream  is  visual : 
we  see  images,  we  express  ideas  in  symbols.  Whereas  in 
the  waking  state,  "to  see"  is  used  in  the  literal  as  well  as  the 
more  or  less  figurative  sense  of  "to  understand,"  in  the  sleep- 
ing state  we  use  it  entirely  in  its  literal  significance.  We  do 
not  think  in  the  dream  in  any  logical  sense,  we  merely  see  a 
succession  of  images,  which  had  been  stored  in  the  mind  in 
the  past.  It  would  have  been  otherwise  impossible  for  the 
dreamer  who  dreamed  about  the  French  Revolution  to  con- 
dense, as  he  did,  so  much  thought  in  a  few  seconds ;  what  the 
dream  really  did  was  to  revive  pictures  in  his  mind  that  he 
actually  gleaned  from  history  books  or  that  his  own  imagina- 
tion may  have  created,  while  he  was  immersed  in  his  read- 
ing. 

Abstract  ideas  in  dreams  can  only  be  represented  graphi- 
cally. In  this  respect  the  dreamer  acts  like  the  child  or  the 
artist.  I  have  asked  many  people  how  they  would  repre- 
sent, for  instance,  the  abstract  idea  of  charity  on  canvas  or 
in  marble,  and  I  have  never  found  two  individuals  who  gave 
me  exactly  the  same  description.  It  is  noteworthy  that  they 
always  describe  the  first  thing  that  comes  to  their  mind. 
One  person  may  see  a  haggard,  decrepit  woman,  in  a  shawl, 
holding  out  her  hand,  and  a  well  dressed  lady  giving  her 


152  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

coins;  another  may  see  a  little  girl,  ragged  and  frozen, 
begging  alms,  and  a  man  pausing  to  help  her.  And  so  the 
pictures  vary  with  each  individual.  But  the  significant  thing 
that  analysis  reveals  is  that  all  these  people  invariably  re- 
produce something  that  they  had  formerly  experienced. 
When  I  asked,  for  instance,  the  person  that  gave  me  the 
first  representation  above  to  tell  me  what  it  suggested  to  him, 
he  recalled  a  trip  in  Italy  where  he  actually  witnessed  many 
such  scenes  in  which  an  American  v»^oman  would  pause  to 
give  alms  to  some  Italian  beggar.  Everybody  has  his  own 
memory  images  for  abstract  ideas,  which,  although  uncon- 
scious, have  their  peculiar,  special  meaning  to  him,  and  are 
represented  in  dreams  in  their  original  form. 

Thus  one  of  my  patients  associated  in  his  dream  a  certain 
woman  whom  he  knew  with  grief,  because  he  thought  of  her 
as  a  "funeral  bird"  in  the  waking  state.  Likewise  one  may 
utilize  in  the  dream  any  situation  representing  in  his  mind 
some  idea  or  emotion,  as  a  symbol  for  a  certain  feeling  a 
certain  "Stimmung."  That  is  why  it  is  wrong  to  attempt  to 
l_vi>^  interpret  a  dream  witl'ua  knowledge  of  what  the  particular 
h  image  represents  in  tne  particular  person's  mind.  There 
are,  to  be  sure,  some  dreams  that  evince  ethnic  symbols  to 
which  definite  meanings  may  be  ascribed,  but  you  have  to  be 
extremely  careful  even  with  those;  they  may  have  an  al- 
together different  significance  in  different  individuals.  In 
other  words,  the  meaning  of  the  dream  cannot  usually  be 
known  unless  the  dreamer  is  well  known  to  the  analyst. 

The  following  dream  is  a  fine  example  of  how  abstract 
thoughts  are  visualized  concretely  in  dreams.  Miss  S. 
dreamed  that  she  "passed  a  very  tall  building  from  which 
smoke  came  out.  Then  some  Hames  hurst  forth.  I  could 
feel  the  awful  heat." 

Analysis:  Miss  S.  is  not  very  fortunate  in  love.  She 
is  well  educated,  intelligent,  and  good-looking,  but  a  little  too 


I 


THE  DREAM:   ITS  FUNCTION  AND  MOTIVE  153 

reserved  to  suit  the  average  young  man.  She  had  many 
admirers,  but  for  some  reason  or  other  the  eligible  man  either 
failed  to  appear,  or  made  little  progress  toward  matrimony. 
The  day  before  the  dream  she  visited  a  friend,  who  jokingly 
teased  her  about  T.,  one  of  her  admirers.  She  heard  that 
he  was  a  "steady  caller,"  as  she  put  it,  and  wanted  to  know 
when  the  engagement  would  be  announced,  and  so  on.  Miss 
S.  was  embarrassed,  and  protested  that  there  was  no  truth 
in  the  rumor,  that  it  was  nothing  but  idle  gossip.  Secretly, 
however,  she  cherished  the  thought  that  T.  might  marry  her. 
The  conversation  ended  with  the  significant  remark  from 
her  friend,  "Where  there's  smoke  there  must  be  fire." 
The  dream  fulfills  her  wish.  The  very  tall  building  is  her- 
self,— she  is  very  tall.  She  sees  the  smoke,  then  the  flames, 
and  can  feel  the  awful  heat.  The  saying,  where  there  is 
smoke  there  is  fire,  is  simply  visualized  by  the  dream,  and  as 
the  dreamer  is  the  chief  actor  of  the  dream,  she  is  the  tall 
building.  A  building  or  house,  as  is  well  known,  is  an  old 
symbol  for  the  body.  We  often  speak  of  the  body  as  the 
house  we  live  in.    Fire  and  heat  are  symbols  of  love. 

An  interesting  little  example  of  this  identification  of  love 
with  fire  is  found  in  one  of  Maupassant's  short  stories,  "Al- 
ways Lock  the  Door,"  which  many  of  you  perhaps  have  read. 
An  old  bachelor  relates  how  his  first  real  adventure  in  love 
miscarried  by  his  failure  to  lock  the  door.  He  invited  his 
fair  friend  to  his  private  room  one  day,  but  to  his  great 
distress,  found  that  he  had  no  fire  because  the  chimney 
smoked.  "The  very  evening  before,"  he  goes  on  to  tell  us, 
"I  had  spoken  to  my  landlord,  a  retired  shopkeeper,  about  it, 
and  he  had  promised  that  he  would  send  for  the  chimney 
sweep  in  a  day  or  two  to  get  it  all  put  to  right.  As  soon  as 
she  came  in  I  said,  'There  is  no  fire  because  my  chimney 
smokes.'  She  did  not  even  appear  to  hear  me  but  stam- 
mered, 'That  does  not  matter,  I  have.  .  .  .' " 


154  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Apart  from  the  fact  that  the  language  of  the  dream  is 
visual,  another  difficulty  in  dream  analysis  is  that  when  the 
dream  wishes  to  represent  something  hidden,  it  resorts  to  the 
same  mechanisms  that  we  use  in  the  waking  state  when  we 
wish  to  express  something  indirectly ;  that  is  to  say,  it  has  re- 
course to  the  "double  entendre,"  double  meaning,  distortions 
and  similar  mechanisms.  I  need  not  give  you  examples;  all 
you  have  to  do  is  to  think  of  the  theatre,  of  the  different 
witticisms  you  hear  and  read ;  you  will  then  realize  that  in 
a  sense  nobody  expresses  himself  truthfully.  Writers  fre- 
quently resort  to  all  sorts  of  detours,  euphemisms  and  sym- 
bolisms when  they  wish  to  express  something  which  would 
sound  either  harsh  or  objectionable  to  polite  society.  Thus 
we  find  that  the  words  thigh  and  staflf  are  often  used  in 
the  Bible  to  express  that  part  which  represents  the  male.  No 
one  is  ashamed  of  taking  nourishment,  if  he  is  hungry,  or  of 
quenching  thirst,  if  he  is  thirsty,  and  that  is  why  conven- 
ience dreams  are  quite  open.  But  it  is  quite  different  with 
the  other  necessities  of  nature  and  with  the  functions  ap- 
pertaining to  sex.  Most  people  are  trained  to  conceal  all 
manifestations  of  the  sex  impulse,  and  as  a  result,  all  ex- 
pression in  this  sphere  is  indirect  and  distorted  even  in  the 
waking  state.  It  is  instructive  to  note,  for  instance,  some  of 
the  indirect  expressions,  such  as  the  "curse"  or  the  "old 
woman"  that  women  use  in  referring  to  menstruation,  a 
physiological  function  of  which  no  one  indeed  need  be 
ashamed.  It  is  not  at  all  surprising,  then,  that  this  secret 
language  in  which  we  speak  about  sex  functions,  should  so 
often  baffle  us. 

A  woman,  for  example,  related  to  me  the  following  dream : 
"I  was  sleeping  with  a  very  disagreeable  old  lady  and  was 
quite  disgusted."  She  wished  to  know  how  such  a  dream 
could  represent  a  wish.  When  I  asked  her  for  associations, 
she  replied  that  nothing  came  to  her  mind ;  there  was  no  one 


THE  DREAM:   ITS  FUNCTION  AND  MOTIVE  155 

with  whom  she  could  identify  this  "old  lady."  Then  I  in- 
quired what  she  had  done  the  day  previous  to  the  dream,  for 
we  must  remember  to  seek  the  determinant  of  the  dream  in 
that  immediate  past ;  the  determinant  is  invariably  an  occur- 
rence of  the  day  previous  to  the  dream.  Some  stimulus  or 
impression  through  any  one  of  the  senses  strikes,  as  it  were, 
something  similar  in  the  mind  with  which  the  latter  is  en- 
grossed, something  that  has  emotional  tone ;  and  it  is  this 
that  gives  rise  to  the  dream.  I  learned  presently  that  the 
woman  had  been  at  a  party  the  night  before,  at  which  one  of 
the  men  proposed  to  take  her  horse-back  riding  on  Sunday, 
She  went  on  to  tell  me  that  she  feared  that  she  could  not  ac- 
cept the  invitation ;  I  inquired  what  reason  she  had  for 
having  to  decline  it  and  she  informed  me,  after  a  little  re- 
sistance, that  she  was  afraid  she  might  menstruate  on  that 
day.  It  occurred  to  me  then  to  ask  her  how  she  designates 
this  function :  "Why,  we  call  it  the  'disagreeable  old 
woman,' "  I  learned.  Here  you  have  the  analysis  of  the 
dream.  When  the  young  man  invited  her  to  go  riding  on 
Sunday,  she  wished  to  accept  but  expecting  to  menstruate 
on  that  day  she  had  to  give  an  indefinite  answer.  She 
turned  to  her  sister  who  understood  her  and  said :  "I  am 
afraid  that  the  old  woman  might  come."  But  as  she  was 
very  anxious  to  go,  she  dreamed  that  she  had  already  men- 
struated, that  she  had  gone  through  with  the  disagreeable 
affair,  that  the  "old  lady"  had  already  been  with  her.  Upon 
superficial  examination,  then,  it  would  have  been  nonsense  to 
say  that  the  dream  represented  a  wish,  but  once  you  under- 
stand what  is  going  on  in  the  dreamer's  mind,  the  deeper 
meaning  becomes  evident.  I  repeat,  then,  in  order  to  analyze 
a  dream,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  know  the  dreamer  well, 
not  only  as  he  is  on  parade,  but  in  those  moments  when  he  is 
most  himself;  you  must  know  his  intimate  personality,  and 
his  idiomatic  expressions,  as  it  were. 


156  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

As  an  example  of  how  dream  analysis  is  made  difficult  by 
the  "distortion"  mechanism,  consider  the  following  dream 
related  to  me  by  a  patient :  He  dreamed  he  was  translating 
Latin.  "I  used  the  word  'whine'  and  the  teacher  said  it 
should  he  'zvhen'  not  'whine.' "  Upon  analysis  it  was  found 
that  the  teacher  in  the  dream  represented  myself,  that  the 
seances  with  me  reminded  him  of  going  to  school  again,  of 
coming  to  me,  as  to  a  teacher,  and  asking  me  questions. 
Associating  further,  he  presently  recalled  that  the  week  be- 
fore he  felt  very  much  depressed ;  he  came  to  me  and  com- 
plained bitterly.  I  told  him  not  to  "whine,"  that  he  would 
surely  get  well,  but  that  it  was  only  a  question  of  time, — i.  e. 
"when."  But  why  did  he  have  to  take  up  Latin?  The 
first  association  that  came  to  his  mind  apropos  of  that  was 
that  whenever  he  attended  his  Latin  hour,  he  was  always 
nervous :  he  used  an  interlinear.  I  accordingly  told  him  that 
he  must  be  cheating  with  me,  too,  and  he  admitted  that  he 
was ;  he  declared  that  there  were  certain  things  that  he  felt 
he  could  not  reveal  to  me,  that  indeed  it  was  rather  foolish 
to  think  that  one  has  to  disclose  everything  to  the  physician. 
As  you  see,  he  was  trying  to  use  an  interlinear  again,  but  it 
did  not  work.  I  informed  him  that  he  would  recover  when 
he  ceased  whining;  "when?" — "When  you  begin  to  tell  the 
truth ;  when  you  do  not  use  an  interlinear,  when  you  will  be 
willing  to  become  independent  of  outside  help." 

Another  example  of  distortion  as  found  in  dreams  may  be 
seen  in  the  following  case.  One  of  my  patients  related  to 
me  how  he  was  present  at  the  usual  New  Year's  Eve  dinner 
that  his  father-in-law  is  accustomed  to  give  to  the  whole 
family.  At  the  appropriate  moment,  the  head  of  the  family 
rose  and  made  a  speech  in  which  he  commented  on  every 
member  of  the  family  in  his  wonted  good-natured  way.  In 
summing  up  the  results  of  the  past  year,  the  old  gentleman 
observed :  "When  I  look  upon  the  assets  and  the  liabilities  of 


THE  DREAM:   ITS  FUNCTION  AND  MOTIVE  157 

the  year  everyone  of  you  is  on  the  asset  side."  At  this  the 
patient  smiled  and  thought  to  himself :  "What  about  your 
son,  the  black  sheep  of  the  family  who  is  causing  you  so  much 
trouble?"  This  son  was  quite  a  serious  problem  to  his 
father,  he  was  considered  the  black  sheep  of  the  family.  He 
was  a  ne'er-do-well,  because  he  was  absolutely  unable  to  tell 
the  truth ;  he  was  a  pathological  liar  of  the  first  order.  Fol- 
lowing this  incident  the  patient  dreamed  that  he  saw  a 
balance  sheet,  under  the  assets  were  the  names  of  the  various 
members  of  the  family,  under  the  liabilities  there  was  just 
the  name  of  the  son.  But  instead  of  "liabilities"  the  word 
was  spelt  thus :  "Lie-abilities."  The  distortion  in  this  dream 
is  exactly  of  the  same  character  as  that  found  in  witticisms. 
When  a  New  York  critic,  for  instance,  in  reviewing  a  play, 
the  first  two  acts  of  which  he  evidently  considered  very  good, 
the  third  rather  poor,  remarked:  "The  first  two  acts  are 
capital,  the  third  is  labor,"  he  was  merely  resorting  to  a 
technique  which  is  by  no  means  uncommon  in  dreams. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  DREAM:    ITS  FUNCTION  AND  MOTIVE 

(Continued) 

We  posit  the  fundamental  principle  that  the  motive  of  the 
dream  is  the  wish.  The  individual  craves  for  something,  but 
as  he  cannot  attain  it  in  reality,  by  virtue  of  its  unattainable 
or  disagreeable  nature,  he  realizes  it  in  the  dream.  When 
one  assures  you  that  he  does  not  dream  it  simply  means  that 
he  does  not  remember  his  dreams,  and  that,  because  he  is 
little  interested  in  the  problem  of  dreams,  and  last  but  not 
least  because  as  its  function  ceases  on  awakening  the  re- 
pression reasserts  itself.  To  be  sure,  some  dream  more  than 
others.  Of  the  many  writers  who  have  investigated  this 
subject,  there  was  one  Santo  de  Sanctis  of  Rome  who  held 
that  criminals  do  not  dream.  You  can  readily  see  what  the 
explanation  would  be  in  the  light  of  our  theories.  A 
criminal  does  not  as  a  rule  repress  much ;  whenever  he  wants 
something,  he  immediately  sets  about  attaining  it.  When  the 
average  normal  person  sees  something  that  he  wants,  but  that 
he  knows  is  absolutely  beyond  his  reach,  he  has  learned  not 
even  to  desire  it  consciously,  in  any  real  sense.  The  criminal 
does  not,  however,  react  in  this  manner.  What  has  caught 
his  fancy  he  immediately  sets  out  to  gain ;  by  virtue  of  his 
weakmindedness  no  fear  of  society  and  law  stays  him.  Be- 
cause he  does  not  repress,  he  inevitably  has  nothing  to  dream 
about.  I  have  found  from  my  own  experience,  however, 
that  Santo  de  Sanctis  was  not  entirely  right  in  his  conclusions, 
that  whereas  most  criminals  I  have  questioned  did  not  really 

158 


THE  DREAM:   ITS  FUNCTION  AND  MOTIVE  159 

dream  as  much  as  the  average  person,  they  all  admitted 
nevertheless  that  they  dream  occasionally.  .After  all,  there  is 
no  human  being  who  can  attain  all  his  wishes. 

In  order  to  understand  why  the  dream  should  thus  be 
motived  by  the  wish  it  is  necessary  to  have  some  idea  of  the 
evolution  of  the  child  from  the  very  beginning.  The  average 
child  expresses  no  wishes,  all  its  wants  are  gratified  by  its 
mother ;  it  lies  in  the  cradle,  frolics  when  satisfied,  cries 
when  hungry  or  uncomfortable.  Gradually,  as  it  grows 
older  its  demands  multiply  and  become  more  marked ;  it  is 
then  that  the  situation  becomes  a  problem.  Observe  a  child 
that  does  not  as  yet  know  how  to  express  itself  in  speech  and 
you  will  find  that  it  wants  everything  that  it  sees  in  its  en- 
vironment ;  it  will  pull  you  to  the  object  of  its  fancy ;  it  craves 
to  grasp  and  hold  it.  The  older  it  grows,  the  more  imperious 
become  its  wants.  When  it  has  learned  to  talk,  you  can 
readily  see  how  powerfully  the  wish  predominates  in  life ;  the 
child  demands  all  the  time,  nothing  can  satisfy  it. 

The  child  starts  its  life  with  what  we  call  the  pleasure 
principle ;  it  craves  for  nothing  but  pleasure.  It  eats,  sleeps, 
and  plays.  When  it  is  satisfied,  it  finds  pleasure  in  sucking 
its  thumb ;  and  the  Germans  very  aptly  call  thumb-sucking 
W onne-saugen,  pleasure  sucking.  When  it  has  once  ex- 
perienced a  pleasure  it  will  always  seek  to  reproduce  it. 
Specialists  have  accordingly  advised  mothers  not  to  rock  a 
child  to  sleep  all  the  time.  For  motion  is  the  most  ele- 
mentary form  of  pleasure  and  manifests  itself  throughout 
our  lives.  It  may  interest  you  to  know  that  it  is  at  the  basis 
of  our  love  for  dancing  and  all  other  enjoyments.  In  all 
popular  amusement  resorts  that  I  have  visited  both  here  and 
on  the  continent  99%  of  the  pleasure  is  essentially  based  on 
this  principle.  We  find  here  a  reversion  to  an  infantile  mode 
of  gratification. 

Gradually,   however,   society   begins   to   curb   the   child; 


i6o  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

parents  cannot  give  it  everything  and  it  begins  to  feel  the 
force  of  repression.  The  older  it  grows,  the  more  it  has  to 
cope  with  the  principle  of  reality;  education  and  all  other 
cultural  forces  are  based  on  the  realization  that  the  in- 
dividual has  to  be  prepared  to  face  that  stern  fact.  If  he 
does  not  adjust  himself  to  reality,  he  will  flounder  about  and 
finally  fail,  despite  everything  one  may  do  to  help  him.  I 
saw  a  man  a  few  weeks  ago  whose  parents  were  multi- 
millionaires; he  was  brought  up  in  the  most  attractive  en- 
vironment. He  was  destined  for  the  army,  sent  to  West 
Point,  stayed  there  a  year  and  a  half  and  was  then  expelled 
on  demerits ;  he  would  not  follow  the  rules  of  discipline  nor 
study.  When  he  related  to  me  some  of  his  escapades  I 
could  not  help  but  wonder  how  he  ever  succeeded  in  staying 
at  the  academy  as  long  as  he  did.  But  he  explained  to  me 
that  his  father  was  very  influential  and  had  considerable 
weight  with  the  authorities.  Expelled  from  West  Point, 
he  matriculated  in  other  schools,  but  could  not  get  along  in 
any  one  of  them.  He  was  hail-fellow-well-met  with  the 
students,  for  he  had  plenty  of  money  to  spend,  but  he  could 
not  study.  "Why  should  I?  What's  the  use?"  he  would 
say  to  himself.  When  his  father  died,  he  came  into  his  own 
rights  and  within  two  or  three  years  he  spent  not  only  every 
cent  he  had,  but  all  that  his  mother  could  give  him.  When 
the  war  broke  out  he  enlisted.  A  great  many  of  his  old 
classmates  were  now  colonels  in  the  regular  army;  one  of 
them  who  liked  him  needed  a  sergeant-major  and  so  took 
him  into  his  regiment.  He  did  quite  well  for  a  time,  but 
was  presently  compelled  to  leave  the  post.  He  was  sent 
to  the  guard  house  and  it  was  there  that  he  passed  most  of  his 
time  throughout  the  whole  war.  He  would  have  made  a 
good  fighter,  but  he  was  absolutely  unable  to  adapt  himself 
to  the  demands  of  reality;  he  could  not  be  disciplined.  He 
could  not  bear  to  have  "those  idiots,"  as  he  called  some  of 


THE  DREAM:   ITS  FUNCTION  AND  MOTIVE  i6i 

his  superiors,  tell  him  what  to  do.  Recently  a  Major  of 
the  Medical  Corps  advised  him  to  see  me.  He  was  ragged 
and  torn  when  he  came  to  me.  I  learned  that  he  was  a  dish 
washer  in  one  of  the  hotels  in  the  city,  and  had  just  been 
"fired."  The  man  is  quite  normal  intellectually;  he  is 
merely  a  spoiled  child,  emotionally  untrained  and  wild.  He 
was  able  to  do  as  he  wanted  when  he  had  money,  but  now, 
as  he  put  it,  he  was  "down  and  out."  And  so  it  is  ab- 
solutely impossible  for  the  individual  to  get  along  in  the 
world,  unless  he  adjusts  himself  to  the  principle  of  reality, 
which  means  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  principle  of  in- 
hibitions and  repressions.  Education  in  the  final  analysis  is 
nothing  but  a  means  of  equipping  the  individual  with  those 
impressions  that  have  already  been  gathered  by  others  in 
order  that  he  may  thus  be  fitted  to  face  and  overcome  the 
difficulties  and  obstacles  of  life,  to  cope  with  the  problems 
of  reality. 

The  child's  education,  accordingly,  begins  at  a  very  early 
period.  Long  before  he  actually  enters  school,  he  has  been 
receiving  at  home  all  this  while  instruction  of  the  most  vital 
importance ;  he  has  been  learning  all  this  while  to  repress. 
Mothers  and  fathers  who  have  observed  carefully  the  de- 
velopment of  the  child  know  but  too  well  that  the  first  word 
that  it  learns  to  speak  is  "no,"  it  is  not  at  all  "dada"  or 
"mama."  It  either  moves  its  head  to  say  "no,"  or 
actually  says  it.  The  reason  is  clear.  There  is  nothing  that 
you  wish  the  child  to  do  that  it  wants  to  do ;  it  always  insists 
on  doing  things  in  its  own  way.  Immediately  corrective 
forces  begin  to  operate  and  the  individual  who  was  destined 
by  nature  to  be  free  and  lead  a  lawless  existence  is  curbed 
finally  to  the  demands  of  actual  life.  Centuries  of  civiliza- 
tion have  left  their  mark  upon  us,  and  we  must  now  live 
accordingly.  No  one,  I  dare  say,  would  wish  to  live  after 
the  manner  of  our  primitive  ancestors.    There  is  therefore 


1 62  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

a  constant  struggle :  no  one  likes  to  submit  to  the  repression 
that  the  inhibitory  aspects  of  civilization  demand;  no  one 
finds  it  easy  to  repress  the  primitive  impulses.  Thus  it  may 
be  said  in  truth  that  the  individual  begins  with  "no"  from 
his  very  infancy,  and  continues  to  declare  it  more  and  more 
vociferously  until  his  death.  His  life,  one  might  say,  is 
one  long  struggle,  one  bitter  revolt.  In  the  light  of  this 
principle  the  idea  of  absolute  independence  and  happiness 
takes  on  a  rather  sombre  aspect.  For  no  matter  what  you 
may  do  for  the  individual,  he  cannot  be  in  any  final  sense 
happy  or  independent,  for  what  he  really  wants  is  some- 
thing that  goes  back  to  his  infantile  life.  In  the  very  nature 
of  things,  then,  we  can  never  be  satisfied ;  no  individual 
can  ever  be  absolutely  contented  with  his  environment,  there 
is  always  room  for  improvement.  There  is  a  story  that  runs 
through  my  mind  which  some  of  you  may  have  perhaps 
heard.  It  is  the  story  of  a  king  whose  only  child,  a  little 
girl,  became  ill.  He  had  the  very  best  doctors  attending  on 
her ;  the  chief  physician  finally  informed  him  that  the  child 
was  helpless,  that  nothing  could  be  done  to  save  her.  The 
king  waxed  angry.  "You  mean  to  say  that  with  all  your 
knowledge  and  sciences  you  cannot  do  anything  for  the 
child?"  he  demanded.  "It  suffers  from  a  condition  that  is 
incurable,"  replied  the  physician.  The  king  became  furious 
and  began  to  threaten.  At  last  one  of  the  doctors  declared 
that  there  was  but  one  thing  that  could  cure  the  child,  and 
that  was  for  her  to  wear  the  shirt  of  one  who  was  per- 
fectly happy.  The  king  was  glad,  for  he  thought  that  that 
was  simple  enough  to  do ;  immediately  he  had  the  news 
heralded  through  the  town.  But  it  was  impossible  to  find 
such  a  person.  Meanwhile  the  child's  condition  was  growing 
more  serious  and  the  king  was  in  great  distress.  Immersed 
in  dark  thoughts,  he  took  a  walk  on  the  outskirts  of  the  city. 
Presently   he   met   a   young   ragamuf^n,   a    shepherd   boy, 


THE  DREAM:    ITS  FUNCTION  AND  MOTIVE  163 

whistling  and  very  joyful.  "You  seem  to  be  very  happy?" 
said  the  king.  "Yes,"  answered  the  boy.  "But  do  tell 
me,  what  makes  you  so  happy?"  inquired  the  king.  "Why 
shouldn't  I  be?  Everything  is  lovely.  Jane  loves  me  and  I 
am  going  to  marry  her  soon.  I  just  feel  fine."  "Did  you 
hear  that  the  king  is  looking  for  some  one  who  is  perfectly 
happy?"  the  king  continued.  "Yes,  I  heard  of  it,  but  I 
haven't  a  shirt,"  was  the  shepherd's  reply.  You  see  only  a 
person  who  can  be  satisfied  without  having  a  shirt,  can 
really  be  happy,  but  are  there  such  persons  outside  of  the 
lunatic  asylum? 

Now  the  significant  thing  to  note  is  that  although  society 
has  actually  succeeded  in  training  the  individual  to  forego 
and  renounce  and  thus  to  adjust  himself  to  prevailing  con- 
ditions, we  nevertheless  find,  when  we  examine  his  intimate 
psychological  recesses,  that  he  really  never  foregoes  his  de- 
sires absolutely,  that  he  has  a  way  of  realizing  them.  In 
dreams,  symptoms,  and  in  the  manifold  unconscious  activi- 
ties of  every-day  life  the  individual  is  still  able  to  realize  his 
wishes. 

Consider  for  a  moment  a  child  who  is  little  acquainted  with 
the  force  of  repression.  I  once  observed  a  little  girl  of  about 
four  years  of  age  who  took  a  fancy  to  a  little  wagon  that 
another  child  was  playing  with.  She  went  directly  up  to  her, 
got  hold  of  the  string  and  wanted  to  take  away  the  little  cart, 
but  at  the  owner's  loud  protests,  the  nurse  soon  hurried  up 
and  compelled  her  to  leave.  The  little  girl's  mother  repri- 
manded her  in  these  words,  "You  must  not  do  that,  that's 
not  yours,  that's  the  other  little  girl's  wagon."  Jane  cried 
so  bitterly  that  her  mother  finally  gave  her  some  chalk  to  play 
with.  Presently  she  drew  some  figure  on  the  sidewalk  and 
pointing  to  it,  cried:  "Here's  a  little  wagon."  I  can  assure 
you  there  was  hardly  any  resemblance  to  the  real  object,  but 
there  was  enough  likeness  there  to  impress  the  child.     In 


i64  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

other  words,  the  httle  girl  actually  realized  her  wish;  she 
now  had  that  play  toy  that  she  wanted  so  badly. 

A  little  girl  continued  to  cry  for  candy  until  she  finally 
fell  asleep.  She  awoke  the  next  morning  crying  and  when 
asked  for  the  reason,  said  that  some  one  took  away  her  box 
of  chocolate  almonds ;  she  insisted  that  she  had  them  in  bed. 
She  was  only  a  little  over  two  years  old  and  was  barely  able 
to  talk.  Undoubtedly  the  child  dreamed  that  she  had  a  big 
box  of  chocolate  almonds,  thus  actually  realizing  her  wish, 
and  unable  to  distinguish  between  dream  and  reality,  cried 
on  awaking. 

As  the  child  grows  older,  however,  one  may  observe  how 
the  wish  becomes  more  and  more  distorted  in  the  dream. 
There  are  more  and  more  complex  mechanisms  appearing 
that  reveal  that  the  child's  nature  is  growing  more  and  more 
comprehensive;  so  long  as  its  mode  of  reaction  was  simple, 
its  dreams  were  simple.  There  is  no  difficulty  in  analyzing  a 
child's  dream  below  the  age  of  five ;  it  is  later  that  the  force 
of  repression  begins  to  i.ianifest  itself.  It  is  noteworthy 
that  it  develops  also  at  this  time  a  sense  of  humor.  As 
we  have  shown  above,  humor  and  wit  are  nothing  but 
modes  of  obtaining  pleasure  from  a  distortion  of  words  and 
ideas,  and  as  long  as  the  child  is  young,  it  has  no  need  for 
them.  When  a  child  bursts  out  in  laughter,  it  does  so  be- 
cause some  one  else  laughs,  it  is  not  a  spontaneous  activity 
with  it.  Gradually  children  develop  more  ideas  and  repress 
considerably  more ;  laughter  is  then  the  result  of  a  com- 
plicated stimulus.  In  my  walks  with  my  little  girl  in  the 
park,  I  used  to  take  her  to  a  place  where  horses  were  usually 
watered.  For  about  a  year,  every  time  I  passed  it,  I  would 
remark:  "Here  we  bring  the  'autos'  to  be  watered,"  to 
which  she  answered  nothing.  One  day  I  made  the  same  re- 
mark, and  she  looked  at  me  quizzically,  smiled  and  said : 
"Autos  don't  have  to  be  watered."     When  she  came  home 


THE  DREAM:    ITS  FUNCTION  AND  MOTIVE  165 

she  told  her  mother  of  the  funny  thing  I  had  said.  It  is 
significant  that  her  dreams  at  this  period  began  to  assume  a 
distorted  aspect ;  she  already  showed  all  the  marks  of  a  com- 
plex mind;  the  associations  were  no  longer  simple. 

The  dream  assumes,  then,  a  more  and  more  complex  and 
distorted  character  as  the  child  grows  older.  Thus  a  little 
boy  is  in  the  Zoological  garden,  and  seeing  a  tiger  for  the 
first  time  in  his  life,  is  very  much  attracted  by  the  animal 
and  remarks  to  his  father,  "Wouldn't  it  be  nice  if  we  had  a 
tiger  home?"  The  father  tells  him  that  such  a  thing  would 
be  altogether  impossible  in  an  apartment.  The  next  morning 
the  boy  tells  his  father  how  he  dreamed  that  they  had  five 
little  tigers  in  the  bird  cage.  So  you  see,  since,  as  it  ap- 
peared to  him,  the  difficulty  lay  merely  in  the  immensity  of 
the  animal,  he  solved  it  in  the  dream  by  appreciably  re- 
ducing its  size.  When  this  boy  was  a  year  older  he  wanted 
a  pony.  He  asked  his  grandfather  to  buy  him  one  and  the 
old  man  said  that  he  would  try  to  do  so ;  but  apparently  he 
never  meant  it  seriously,  for  when  Christmas  came,  the  boy 
had  to  go  without  one  and  his  disappointment  was  keen. 
His  father  explained  to  him  that  the  old  man  was  only 
joking,  for  he  could  not  afford  the  purchase.  Then  the  little 
boy  dreamed  that  he  had  a  pony,  and  it  was  lame  and  he  did 
not  want  it.  You  see  how  he  reconciled  himself  now. 
Thus,  then,  as  the  child  grows  older,  the  dream  becomes 
more  and  more  complex,  and  consequently  with  it,  the  wish 
expression. 

The  following  dreams  illustrate  remarkably  well  the  essen- 
tial point  that  I  am  trying  to  bring  home  to  you,  namely  that 
the  dream,  in  the  final  analysis,  is  nothing  but  a  concrete 
visualization  of  a  hidden  wish.  The  first  of  these  was 
brought  to  me  by  a  very  active  and  intelligent  woman,  and 
runs  as  follows :  "I  was  in  a  train  and  had  a  baby  wrapped 
up  in  a  blanket,  and  a  negro  nurse.     The  baby  was  sleeping 


1 66  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

at  the  foot  of  the  bed.  I  zvas  in  bed.  The  nurse  was  sitting 
on  a  bench  in  front.  There  came  people, — a  whole  crowd 
of  them — from  a  certain  club,  and  I  said  I  Jtad  to  nurse  the 
baby.  I  looked  to  see  whether  he  zvas  azvake  because  he 
had  been  so  very  quiet.  I  saw  that  the  child  had  a  man's 
face;  he  smiled  at  me  and  said,  7  can  wait,  I  am  not 
hungry!' " 

Now  the  dream  appeared  strange  and  comical  to  the 
dreamer.  When  she  had  related  it  to  me,  she  laughed  and 
observed,  "Isn't  that  funny,  I  wonder  what  you  can  make  out 
of  it?"  Knowing  the  patient  well,  it  was  no  difficult 
matter  to  interpret  the  dream.  She  informed  me  that  the 
previous  evening  she  gave  a  dinner  to  a  gentleman  who  was 
lecturing  at  this  club  of  which  we  hear  in  the  dream.  It  is 
an  association  which  she  founded  about  twenty  years  ago 
for  the  advancement  of  child-study,  and  its  demands  upon 
her  time  and  attention  were  very  great.  Most  of  the  duties 
devolved  upon  her,  and  she  was  therefore  kept  constantly 
busy.  She  heaved  a  sigh  of  relief  when  the  dinner  was 
over,  and  bewailed  her  lot  to  her  husband  who  remarked: 
"It's  about  time  they  got  some  one  else  to  do  the  work. 
The  association  is  now  grown  up  and  I  should  think  there 
would  be  a  great  many  others  who  would  take  your  place." 
That  was  what  she  really  wished.  We  now  see  how  in- 
geniously the  idea  is  represented :  the  baby  in  the  dream  is 
this  association  devoted  to  child-study  which  she  has  founded 
and  which  she  now  desires  to  be  sufficiently  grown  up  to  take 
care  of  itself  and  relieve  her  of  her  many  duties.  She 
wonders  whether  the  child  was  awake,  "he  was  so  quiet:" 
we  see  here  her  wish  that  the  association  would  not  tax  so 
much  of  her  time.  And  further,  when  she  looks  at  the  child 
she  finds  that  he  is  grown  up;  he  says  "I  can  wait,  I  am  not 
hungry."  We  see  here  the  concrete  visualization  of  what 
her  husband  said,  "the  association  is  grown  up  and  could  get 


THE  DREAM:   ITS  FUNCTION  AND  MOTIVE  167 

along  without  you."  The  dream  thus  realizes  her  wish :  the 
association  is  grown  up  and  can  get  along  without  her  con- 
stant attention;  the  baby  can  get  along  without  her  constant 
nursing  and  care:  "I  can  wait,  I  am  not  hungry,"  he  assures 
her. 

Miss  W.,  a  college  student  of  about  twenty,  related  to  me 
the  following  dream:  "I  saw  Apollo  embracing  Venus  de 
Milo,  and  then  Apollo  stabbed  her  in  the  breast."  As  we 
look  at  the  dream,  it  does  not  seem  to  represent  a  wish,  and 
what  is  more,  it  does  not  contain  the  dreamer.  Before  pro- 
ceeding any  further,  then,  permit  me  at  once  to  impress  upon 
your  mind  that  whenever  you  cannot  find  the  dreamer,  look 
for  him  under  the  guise  of  the  dream's  central  or  predomi- 
nant character.  That  is  the  only  way  to  get  at  the  heart  of 
the  situation.  If  the  dreamer  is  a  man,  he  is  concealed  in  the 
hero  of  the  dream,  if  a  woman,  in  the  heroine.  Remember 
also  that  it  makes  no  difference  whether  he  is  represented  by 
human  beings  or  by  animals.  A  man,  for  example,  told  me 
yesterday  how  he  dreamed  that  two  cats  were  engaged  in  a 
boxing  match,  how,  strange  to  say,  they  were  all  the  while 
exchanging  bitter  words,  and  how  finally  the  smaller  cat 
succeeded  in  "knocking  out"  the  bigger  opponent.  When 
we  resorted  to  continuous  association,  the  dreamer  recalled  a 
scene  he  witnessed  on  the  day  before  the  dream,  in  the  college 
gymnasium,  in  which  two  men  were  boxing;  one  was  heavy 
and  tall,  the  other  was  light,  and  quick  as  a  "cat."  The 
latter,  because  of  his  agility,  "knocked  out"  his  adversary. 
If  I  were  to  describe  to  you  the  dream  in  full,  you  would 
readily  see  that  the  dreamer  identified  himself  with  the  suc- 
cessful boxer ;  he  takes,  therefore,  a  situation  in  which  he 
overcomes  an  individual  whom  he  would  like  to  "knock  out" 
in  reality,  and  because  of  the  peculiarly  intimate  relation  in 
his  mind  between  the  agility  of  the  boxer  and  a  cat,  he 
transforms  it  entirely  into  a  fight  between  two  cats. 


1 68  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

In  this  Intimate  relation  existing  between  the  dreamer  and 
the  central  character  in  the  dream  there  is  a  marked  analogy 
to  the  relation  that  we  find  between  the  author  and  his  work. 
In  the  final  analysis  we  may  say  that  a  book  invariably 
describes  directly  or  indirectly  the  author.  He  is  always  the 
central  figure  in  the  story,  and  if  like  Bernard  Shaw  he  can 
talk  under  five  or  ten  characters  it  merely  shows  that  he  is 
by  just  that  much  the  more  gifted  and  versatile  author.  The 
dominant  ideas  expressed  are  his  ideas,  they  may  be  traced 
back  ultimately  to  the  one  source, — his  own  personality. 
That  is  why  the  hero  overcomes  generally  all  vicissitudes, 
he  is  never  vanquished,  for  unless,  of  course,  the  author  is 
masochistic,  he  does  not  wish  to  die  or  be  conquered.  In 
this  connection  I  cannot  help  but  relate  to  you  a  case  on 
which  a  lawyer  consulted  me  some  years  ago.  The  story 
received  quite  a  bit  of  notoriety  in  New  York.  A  young 
woman  entered  suit  against  her  elderly,  wealthy  husband  for 
separation  and  alimony.  She  was  said  to  be  of  a  shady  repu- 
tation and  merely  desired  to  get  rid  of  him,  so  that  she  could 
live  with  another  man.  The  respondent's  lawyer  was  anxious 
to  know  whether  I  could  do  anything  to  help  him.  Among  the 
things  he  had  with  him  was  a  typewritten  manuscript  which 
was  written  by  the  young  woman ;  it  was  a  story  that  she  in- 
tended for  publication.  When  I  read  it,  I  noted  quite  a 
number  of  significant  things  from  which  one  was  able  to 
draw  many  conclusions.  For  one  thing,  I  felt  quite  con- 
vinced that  the  authoress  was  carrying  on  an  amour  with 
the  head  waiter  in  some  New  York  restaurant,  for  it  was 
nothing  short  of  such  stuff  that  she  fashioned  her  hero  and 
what  was  just  as  significant,  the  restaurant  that  she  de- 
scribed tallied  remarkably  with  any  one  of  ours  on  Broad- 
way. When  I  expressed  my  mind  in  the  matter  to  the 
lawyer,  I  learned  that  it  was  just  such  a  "fellow"  that  was 


THE  DREAM:   ITS  FUNCTION  AND  MOTIVE  169 

suspected  as  the  paramour.  Following  this  clue,  detectives 
soon  completely  corroborated  my  conclusion. 

Following,  then,  this  rule  as  to  the  dreamer's  place  in  the 
dream,  I  could  at  once  see  the  character  behind  whose  skin, 
so  to  say.  Miss  W.  lay  concealed,  I  knew  that  Venus  must 
undoubtedly  represent  the  dreamer.  To  my  query  as  to 
what  she  knew  of  the  ancient  goddess  she  replied  tersely: 
"Oh!  I  just  love  her!"  She  then  continued  to  inform  me 
that  she  had  a  picture  of  Venus  both  in  her  room  at  college 
and  at  home.  I  could  now  plainly  see  why  she  identified 
herself  with  her.  Upon  investigating  further,  I  found  that 
Miss  W.  would  often  argue  quite  warmly  with  her  room 
mate  at  college  when  they  both  undressed  on  retiring  as  to 
who  of  the  two  resembled  Venus  more,  and  that  the  final 
decision  was  in  the  former's  favor.  We  thus  see  how  she 
actually  identified  herself  with  Venus. 

By  way  somewhat  of  a  digression,  I  may  remark  that  I 
have  always  found  it  instructive  to  question  people  as  to 
whom  in  history  they  consider  their  greatest  personage, 
their  ideal  character.  There  is,  of  course,  the  underlying 
assumption  here  that  the  individual  who  represents  this 
idea  is  the  one  with  whom  we  consciously  or  unconsciously 
identify  ourselves.  In  a  Htde  paper  that  I  have  written  on 
the  subject^  I  have  pointed  out  that  most  of  the  persons 
whom  I  have  questioned  mentioned  Napoleon  as  their  ideal 
character;  and  though  60%  of  them  were  Christians  only 
two  mentioned  Jesus.  Over  90%  of  those  whom  I  ques- 
tioned took  individuals  like  Napoleon  as  their  ideal  type; 
Lincoln  took  second  place  to  him.  But  we  must  bear  in 
mind  that  the  latter  was  far  from  being  a  weakling,  that, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  was  more  than  in  one  sense,  an  un- 
usually strong  man.  I  have  drawn  some  significant  con- 
clusions from  the  data  I  have  thus  collected  and  have  des- 

*The  Empathic  Index,  Medical  Record,  Feb.,  1920. 


I70  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

ignated  the  individuars  particular  answer  as  his  "Emphatic 
Index."  The  latter  shows  the  character  one  identifies  him- 
self with,  whom  one  tries  to  emulate,  you  might  say,  uncon- 
sciously. There  is  no  doubt  that  Napoleon  represents  the 
very  acme  of  primitivity ;  and  the  secret  of  the  profound 
fascination  that  he  exerts  over  us  lies  undoubtedly  in  the 
fact  that  he  is  an  embodiment  of  those  very  things  that  we 
unconsciously  and  even  consciously  admire.  There  are 
many  other  interesting  considerations  about  the  emphatic 
index  that  we  might  dwell  on,  but  for  our  purpose  now  I 
merely  wish  to  point  out  that  when  a  person  states  that  he 
most  admires  this  or  that  character,  then  it  is  that  character 
after  whom  he  desires  to  be  modelled,  or  whom  he  desires 
to  emulate, — like  master  like  man,  as  it  is  said. 

It  is  quite  evident,  then,  that  Miss  W.  wished  to  look  like 
Venus.  Now  it  is  natural  that  if  Venus  is  going  to  have  an 
affaire  de  cccur,  it  cannot  be  with  a  common  mortal  of  to- 
day, it  has  to  be  with  Apollo.  When  I  asked  her  to  tell  me 
something  of  Apollo,  she  said :  "Well,  I  can  tell  you  the 
story  about  him  from  mythology."  I  asked  her  to  describe 
how  he  looked  in  the  dream  and  she  replied :  "Just  like  that 
lieutenant  I  told  you  about."  The  latter  was  a  young  man 
with  whom  she  had  danced  the  night  before.  When  she 
had  described  Apollo  I  found  that  she  had  at  least  a  half 
dozen  men  in  that  one  character.  In  other  words,  this 
Apollo  of  hers  was  indeed  a  very  modern  gentleman ;  he  was 
a  condensation,  a  fusion  of  a  great  many  individuals  whom 
she  knew.  This  is  nothing  unusual.  Ask  a  man,  for  in- 
stance, to  describe  his  ideal  woman  and  he  will  draw  on  ever 
so  many  women  to  describe  her ;  she  must  be  as  tall  as  Miss 
so-and-so,  have  hair  as  Miss  Brown's,  etc.  One  man  to 
whom  I  put  the  question  actually  had  no  less  than  the  attri- 
butes of  fifteen  women  in  his  conception  of  his  ideal  wife. 
Miss  W.  met  the  lieutenant  with  whom  she  associated  Apollo 


THE  DREAM:   ITS  FUNCTION  AND  MOTIVE  171 

at  a  war  camp  sociable  where  the  men  who  were  presently 
to  leave  for  the  war  were  entertained.  Flushed  and  stimu- 
lated by  the  dance,  she  came  home,  feeling  a  sense  of  "pity" 
for  this  aviator  who,  in  his  full  manhood  and  strength,  was 
going  forth  to  the  war,  perhaps  never  to  return ;  and  indeed, 
did  he  not  express  that  very  sentiment  to  her  himself?  He 
had  taken  her  home  on  the  night  of  the  dance  and  on  parting, 
asked  her  to  kiss  him  good-by,  but  she  had  refused.  Of 
course,  later,  on  retiring  to  bed,  she  was  sorry  that  she  had 
denied  him  that  request.  We  may  thus  see  that  the  whole 
scene  had  a  distinct  erotic  setting.  Analysis  reveals  that  the 
dream  represented  the  realization  of  a  wish  which  could 
just  as  well  have  been  open.  If  the  young  woman  had  not 
been  brought  up  in  the  manner  that  she  was,  she  could  have 
consciously  thought  to  herself,  "Yes,  I  am  very  pleased  with 
the  lieutenant  and  how  I  do  wish  he  were  here  to  court  me." 
But  such  was  her  moral  training  at  home  that  she  did  not 
dare  think  of  such  a  thing:  She  was  trained  to  regard  such 
a  thought  as  immoral  and  ugly.  And  so  in  repressing  this 
very  thought,  she  has  this  particular  dream.  I  should  add 
that  she  awoke  markedly  excited  and  with  a  feeling  of  palpi- 
tation of  the  heart.  We  may  accordingly  designate  her 
dream  as  one  of  anxiety,  and  like  all  dreams  of  this  type,  it 
denoted  gross  sex,  physical  sex.  The  young  woman  never 
consciously,  of  course,  thought  of  that  in  the  waking  state; 
all  that  she  was  aware  of  was  the  usual  stimulation  that  any 
refined  and  modest  girl  would  experience  on  a  similar  oc- 
casion. 

The  question  now  presents  itself :  What  does  the  dream 
represent?  To  answer  this,  we  must  turn  our  attention  for 
a  moment  to  a  brief  consideration  of  a  highly  interesting  psy- 
chological mechanism  often  encountered  in  unconscious  men- 
tation like  dream  and  myths.  Whenever  we  wish  to  speak 
in  the  waking  state  about  any  delicate  situation  that  refers  to 


172  rSYCHOANALYSIS 

the  lower  part  of  the  body,  we  displace  it  to  the  upper  part 
of  the  body.  A  woman  suffering  from  some  digestive  dis- 
turbance, will  usually  declare,  when  questioned  about  her 
condition,  that  she  merely  has  a  cold.  Instead  of  telling  the 
truth,  menstruating  women  will  very  often  veil  their  con- 
dition by  some  such  general  remark  as  that  they  are  ill-dis- 
posed, or  that  they  have  a  cold  or  throat  trouble.  In  other 
words,  they  show  a  mechanism  which  is  well  known  in  symp- 
toms and  dreams,  namely,  the  displacement  from  below  to 
above.  If  we  bear  in  mind  now  that  the  dream  simply 
represented  a  situation  below  the  waist-line,  we  can  readily 
see  its  concealed  meaning;  it  was  a  gross  sex  dream,  the 
stabbing  denoting  coitus,  a  situation  which  no  woman  of  her 
type  would  ever  have  allowed  herself  to  think  of  in  the 
waking  state.  But  as  we  have  said  again  and  again,  it  does 
not  matter  whether  one  thinks  of  these  things  consciously. 
Nature  demands  expression  of  these  powerful  emotional  and 
instinctive  forces  at  a  certain  age  in  life,  and  whether  we 
are  consciously  aware  of  them  or  not — particularly,  if  we 
are  not — they  manifest  themselves  in  just  such  ways.  We 
find  such  an  anxiety  dream  about  being  stabbed,  all  because 
to  the  average  cultured,  unmarried  woman,  coitus  and  every- 
thing directly  or  indirectly  associated  with  it  are  painted  in 
horrible  colors ;  women  are  all  made  to  feel  that  it  entails 
very  much  pain,  and  particularly  if  it  is  illicit,  that  it  repre- 
sents an  experience  almost  equivalent  to  death.  Those  were, 
then,  the  feelings  that  fleeted  through  the  woman's  uncon- 
scious mind  and  that  found  concealed  expression  in  the 
dream.  Thus  the  dream  is  not  at  all  as  mysterious  as  we  at 
first  might  have  thought;  its  deeper  meaning  becomes  clear 
to  us,  if  we  only  understand  the  mechanisms  which  one  has 
to  look  for  in  any  unconscious  mentation. 

Consider  with  me  now  the  following  dream  related  to  me 
by  a  patient:    "I  was  discussing  some  business  deal  with  a 


THE  DREAM:   ITS  FUNCTION  AND  MOTIVE  173 

prospective  partner;  I  listened  in  silence  and  then  said: 
'You  can't  put  that  over  on  me.'  I  said  that  because  he  put 
his  foot  on  my  knee.  I  got  hold  of  him  by  the  leg,  threw 
him  around  and  right  over  my  head;  he  fell  on  his  head  to 
the  ground  and  broke  his  neck.  He  was  dead.  I  then  went 
out  and  found  my  mother  because  I  was  very  much  afraid; 
I  feared  tJmt  I  would  be  arrested." 

Here,  of  course,  there  is  no  difficulty  in  finding  the  chief 
actor ;  he  certainly  cannot  be  the  dead  man,  he  must  be  the 
dreamer  himself.  The  man  who  related  to  me  the  dream 
was  an  officer  who  had  just  recently  returned  from  the  war ; 
he  told  me  that  he  was  seeking  new  business  connections,  as 
his  old  association  was  not  of  the  kind  that  he  desired,  that 
he  felt  that  now  he  was  back,  it  was  the  opportune  time  to 
make  a  new  and  better  start.  With  this  view  he  had  dis- 
cussed the  matter  with  different  people.  The  determinant  of 
the  dream  was  a  conference,  then,  with  a  prospective 
partner  on  a  new  business  venture ;  we  find  here  the  clue  to 
the  dream.  When  I  questioned  him  about  the  action  in  the 
dream — throwing  the  man  down  and  breaking  his  head, — 
he  replied  that  he  could  only  recall  the  following: 
"When  I  was  at  college  on  the  football  team  I  played  end. 
The  particular  year  that  I  have  in  mind  the  other  team  was 
much  heavier  than  ours  and  they  beat  us  very  badly.  The 
score  was, — well,  I  am  ashamed  to  tell  it  to  you  even  now — 
48-0."  Mark  how  deeply  he  felt  over  the  incident,  though 
it  was  now  many  years  since  it  had  occurred.  Then  he  con- 
tinued to  inform  me  that  the  next  year  they  played  the  same 
team,  and  knowing  the  terrible  defeat  they  suffered  at  its 
hands  previously,  they  practiced  a  great  deal  and  succeeded 
in  beating  the  rival  team.  He  related  how,  when  the  latter 
began  to  repeat  its  old  tactics,  he  was  all  prepared  for  them, 
how  he  always  succeeded  in  throwing  over  his  opponent,  and 
how  he  incapacitated  one  of  the  adversaries  for  the  rest  of 


174  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

the  game.  In  other  words,  the  second  year  he  won;  the 
first  year  he  was  badly  beaten.  I  asked  him  about  his 
mother  in  the  dream  and  he  went  on  to  say  that  the  game 
was  so  extremely  rough  that  his  mother  who  came  to  see  it, 
was  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  game  so  disturbed  and 
frightened  that  she  had  to  leave  the  stand  and  sat  apart 
crying,  fearing  that  something  serious  would  inevitably  re- 
sult from  such  a  rough  and  tumble.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
only  three  of  the  original  players  went  through  with  the 
game:  as  for  himself,  he  became  delirious  and  was  in  such 
a  serious  condition  when  finally  brought  out  after  the  game 
that  his  mother  had  actually  to  take  him  in  hand  and  nurse 
him  back  to  life,  as  it  were. 

The  question  is,  "Why  should  all  these  things  be  bound  up 
with  the  dream?"  As  you  see,  there  is  a  similar  situation 
now ;  he  was  in  business  and  considered  it  a  failure ;  he 
wanted  something  new.  He  is  about  to  go  into  a  new  line 
of  work ;  and  the  same  situation  of  suffering  a  defeat  before 
and  now  taking  up  something  new  in  which  he  was  to  be  as 
successful  as  in  the  second  football  game,  or,  in  other  words, 
in  which  he  was  to  win,  presents  itself.  He  succeeds  so 
well  that  he  "knocks"  out  his  partner  at  once!  "Putting 
something  over  him,"  as  he  expressed  it,  is  actually  true,  it 
is  actually  acted  out  in  the  dream :  "the  partner  put  his  foot 
on  my  (the  dreamer's)  knee;"  we  have  an  actual  picture  of 
it  in  the  dream.  Here  you  see  that  the  whole  past  associated 
with  the  football  game  is  symbolic  of  the  present  situation; 
in  other  words,  he  was  a  failure  the  first  time,  a  winner  the 
second  time.  Now  the  idea  in  his  mind  is:  "I  would  like 
to  form  a  partnership  in  which  I  am  successful ;"  and  as  it  is 
an  anticipation  dream,  he  sees  himself  already  winning,  i.  e., 
acting  as  he  did  in  the  football  game  in  which  he  was  not  at 
all  concerned  if  he  killed  his  opponent  or  not,  provided  he 
was  successful. 


THE  DREAM:    ITS  FUNCTION  AND  MOTIVE  175 

The  above  dream  clearly  reveals  the  three  strata  of  every 
dream, — first  the  present  (trying  to  get  into  a  new  business)  ; 
second,  the  past  (the  present  situation  becomes  associated 
with  a  similar  situation  in  the  past.  We  must  remember 
that  there  are  so  many  experiences  that  occur  in  one's  life 
that  there  is  no  situation  of  to-day  that  will  not  revive  some 
similar  situation  in  the  past)  ;  third,  the  remote  past  or  in- 
fantile. There  is  no  dream,  however  simple,  that  does  not 
show  these  three  strata.  Your  dream  to-day  touches  di- 
rectly or  indirectly,  something  of  yesterday;  it  is  absurd  to 
think  that  we  dream  merely  of  some  trifle  that  is  only  of 
importance  to  the  immediate  present.  In  the  above  dream 
we  see  how  the  particular  present  situation  was  expressed 
symbolically  by  some  situation  of  the  past ;  and  when  we  go 
further  with  the  analysis,  we  find  that  the  same  tracks,  as  it 
were,  existed  in  the  person's  childhood.  At  this  earlier 
period  he  had  an  older  brother  who  constantly  dominated 
him,  "put  it  over  him,"  and  he  was  thus  prepared,  we  might 
say,  to  meet  similar  situations  later  in  life.  That  is  why  it 
is  so  important  that  you  understand  these  mechanisms ;  for 
when,  as  parents,  you  find  that  a  child  is  handicapped  in  this 
way,  it  will  be  your  duty  to  take  a  special  attitude  toward  the 
problem ;  you  must  not  allow  the  older  child  to  dominate  the 
younger  one.  As  teachers,  you  must  always  see  to  it  that  the 
child  who  is  considerably  younger  than  the  average  should 
not  be  placed  in  a  class  of  older  children,  even  if  it  is  up  to 
the  mark  intellectually.  Children  should  mix  with  only  those 
of  their  own  mental  and  physical  equipment,  and  that  is 
usually  only  possible  with  those  of  the  same  age.  The  so- 
called  smart  child  that  is  put  together  with  considerably  older 
children  is  seriously  harmed  thereby;  when  he  grows  up  he 
is  forever  harassed  by  a  feeling  of  inferiority.  I  have  seen 
many  people  who  have  gone  through  school  at  the  age  of, 
let  us  say,  fourteen  or  fifteen,  when  they  should  have  gone 


176  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

to  sixteen  and  seventeen ;  they  were  intellectually  precocious, 
but  emotionally  they  were  always  handicapped.  They  were 
called  "Shorty"  or  "Kid"  at  school  and  it  was  in  such  emo- 
tional states  that  they  remained  throughout  life,  because 
they  saw  the  school  situation  everywhere,  whether  it  really 
existed  or  not;  they  followed  the  path  of  the  acquired 
tendency.  As  I  have  reiterated  so  frequently  here,  cer- 
tain tracks  are  laid  out  from  the  very  beginning  and  the  in- 
dividual always  follows  them.  In  brief,  one  might  say  that 
our  present  acts  if  not  exact  reproductions  of,  are  certainly 
analogous  to,  the  past,  they  are,  so  to  speak,  symbolic  of  the 
past. 

In  the  beginning  of  our  course  we  pointed  out  that  such 

imperfect  analogies,  such  symbolic  expressions  as  we  find  in 

dreams  are  found  also  in  symptoms.     It  matters 
Dreama  and         .  i  i  •  i  •      i  1.1 

Symptoms     not  how  bizarre,  how  seemmgly  senseless  the  pa- 

Aaaiog-ous  ^jgj^^-'g  gymptom  may  be,  it  has  a  definite  meaning 
in  his  life,  it  bears  an  intimate  relation  to  his  inner  problems 
and  conflicts ;  and  it  is  only  by  understanding  it  that  we  can 
comprehend  and  evaluate  his  attitude  toward  the  world. 

Years  ago  Miss  R.,  a  young  woman  around  the  early 
twenties,  was  brought  to  me  by  her  mother.  The  history  of 
the  case  was  that  for  months  she  had  been  very  depressed ; 
she  ate  very  little  and  spent  most  of  her  time  in  crying ;  she 
suffered  from  insomnia  and  thought  of  suicide.  She  was 
seen  by  many  physicians  some  of  whom  designated  her  con- 
dition as  nervousness,  others  as  insanity.  I  spoke  to  the 
parent  before  I  saw  the  patient.  She  talked  about  the 
daughter's  condition  in  the  characteristic  fashion  of  the 
grieved  and  devoted  mother,  and  remarked  sadly :  "It's  too 
bad,  Doctor,  such  a  fine  girl!  She  always  stayed  at  home, 
never  went  out  with  the  boys  and  was  so  well-behaved ;  and 
now  she  has  been  sick  so  long."    When  I  turned  to  the  girl 


THE  DREAM:   ITS  FUNCTION  AND  MOTIVE  177 

and  asked  her  why  she  was  so  depressed,  she  began  to  cry, 
and  upon  urging  her  to  speak,  she  declared  that  she  was 
unworthy,  that  she  had  committed  all  kinds  of  transgressions. 
Upon  being  pressed  for  further  explanation,  she  replied  that 
she  had  drowned  some  pups;  whereupon  the  mother  im- 
mediately interposed,  "But,  Doctor,  that  happened  when  she 
was  a  little  bit  of  a  girl,  about  twenty  years  ago,  and  I  am 
sure  she  did  not  do  it."  However  that  may  be,  there  was 
no  need  for  the  mother  to  attempt  to  exonerate  her  daughter, 
for  the  moment  I  learned  that  this  incident  went  ever  so 
many  years  back,  I  had  all  good  reason  to  pause  and  wonder 
why  a  person  should  cry  to-day  over  what  had  occurred 
twenty  years  ago,  and  what,  up  to  a  few  months  ago,  she 
never  gave  the  slightest  thought  to.  Moreover,  such  epi- 
sodes are  rarely  impressive  to  the  extent  of  being  taken  up 
so  many  years  later  in  life. 

A  patient  like  Miss  R.  may  be  variously  diagnosed;  she 
may  be  said  to  be  merely  nervous ;  some  designated  her  con- 
dition as  manic  depressive  insanity,  by  which  we  mean  that 
she  suffered  from  a  form  of  emotional  disturbance  which 
comes  in  certain  cycles,  periodically,  as  we  said  previously ; 
sometimes  the  patient  is  maniacal,  sometimes  depressed.  In 
this  particular  case  there  was  no  history  of  any  previous  at- 
tacks, nor  was  there  anything  in  her  family  to  justify  that 
there  was  a  tendency  to  such  attacks,  as  one  usually  finds  in 
the  real  cases  of  manic  depressive  insanity.  After  observing 
her  for  a  week  I  diagnosed  her  condition  as  a  case  of  anxiety 
hysteria. 

When  we  attempt  to  help  the  patient,  we  must  depend  in 
large  measure  upon  his  cooperation  and  treat  the  symptom 
just  as  we  treat  a  dream.  Now  the  dream  that  we  remember 
we  call  the  "manifest"  dream;  in  analyzing  it  we  are  aiming 
to  get  at  its  "latent"  content.  The  manifest  dream  may  re- 
quire perhaps  just  two  lines  to  describe,  but  when  we  begin 


178  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

to  take  the  associations  to  it,  or  in  other  words,  to  discover 
its  "latent"  content,  we  may  have  to  write  ten  pages  or  even 
more.  The  same  thing  holds  true  of  symptoms.  You  see  a 
patient  in  the  insane  asylum  hallucinating;  she  hears  voices. 
Ask  her  who  it  is  that  is  talking  to  her  and  she  will  inform 
you  that  it  is  "Mr.  Brown."  Upon  investigation  you  will 
find  that  the  latter  had  paid  her  attention  and  that  she  was 
in  love  with  him ;  now  she  is  hallucinating,  thinking  that  he 
is  speaking  to  her.  You  find  the  "latent"  content  in  order  to 
determine  the  nature  and  mechanism  of  the  patient's 
symptom. 

I  saw  Miss  R.  for  a  week  or  two ;  she  would  always  come 
with  her  mother  and  after  each  interview,  the  parent  would 
come  into  my  consulting  room  in  the  characteristic,  appre- 
hensive manner  of  a  mother  and  would  remark,  in  passing: 
"Isn't  it  terrible.  Doctor,  that  such  a  misfortune  should 
befall  such  a  nice  girl !  She  never  went  out  with  boys,  she 
was  always  so  well-behaved!"  I  began  to  feel  that  the 
mother  was  laying  undue  emphasis  on  her  daughter's  being 
such  a  "nice"  girl.  I  had  no  doubt  whatsoever  that  she 
actually  believed  what  she  said  and  as  for  myself,  I  had  no 
reason  to  question  its  veracity,  but  I  was  just  struck  by  the 
emphasis.  We  say  in  our  work  that  there  is  a  definite  re- 
lation between  the  "noopsyche"  and  the  "thymopsyche,"  be- 
tween the  mind  and  the  emotions ;  they  are  directly  pro- 
portional. In  other  words,  if  in  speaking  to  you  here  I  try 
to  impress  you  with  certain  facts,  I  do  not  act  like  a  person 
who  would  inform  you  that  there  is  a  fire  in  the  building; 
the  emotional  element  would  be  disproportionate  to  the  idea 
involved.  With  this  key  of  undue  emphasis,  then,  I  began  to 
suspect  that  there  must  be  something  behind  the  mother's 
assurance.  One  could  see  that  the  mother  in  repeating  those 
words  to  me  was  really  assuring  herself ;  that  she  un- 
doubtedly   reacted    to    an    unconscious    doubt    about    her 


THE  DREAM:   ITS  FUNCTION  AND  MOTIVE  179 

daughter's  proper  behavior.  So  I  began  to  work  on  this 
theory,  following  the  well  known  detective  formula,  "cher- 
ches  I'homme."  I  began  accordingly  to  inquire  into  the 
patient's  love  life,  but  she  was  reluctant  to  speak  about  it. 
She  simply  assured  me  that  she  was  leading  the  usual 
average  life.  To  my  question  whether  she  had  a  love  affair 
she  showed  an  unusual  emotional  reaction;  she  burst  into 
tears  and  as  I  was  unable  to  calm  her  the  seance  had  to  be 
ended.  The  next  time  she  came  I  began  the  analysis  again 
and  again  she  began  to  cry ;  but  emotions  are  exhaustible,  so 
presently  her  tears  were  spent  and  she  began  to  talk. 

In  analyzing  her  symptoms,  I  asked  myself :  "What  are 
the  elements  that  enter  into  it?"  or  in  other  words,  "why 
does  this  woman  cry  to-day  over  an  episode  of  twenty  years 
ago?"  Every  emotion  that  a  person  experiences  must  have 
some  reason  for  its  existence,  and  if  you  cannot  find  that 
reason  in  the  present,  you  may  be  quite  sure  that  the  emotion 
is  displaced  to  some  situation  to  which  it  does  not  strictly 
belong,  but  with  which  it  has  become  connected  by  some 
direct  or  indirect  association.  Now  whenever  an  emotion 
has  to  be  displaced,  it  simply  means  that  it  cannot  remain 
with  the  original  episode,  but  must  be  transferred  to  some 
other  situation.  There  was  no  reason  for  the  woman's  cry- 
ing over  a  trifling  and  insignificant  episode  that  occurred 
far  back  in  her  childhood.  One  might  dislike  to  witness 
pups  being  drowned,  but  there  is  no  reason  why  one  should 
continue  to  wail  over  it  for  months,  after  it  was  seemingly 
forgotten  for  about  twenty  years.  I  was  urged,  then,  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  episode  relating  to  the  pups  was  only  a 
concealing  memory,  it  was  a  memory  which  she  brought  to 
the  surface  and  retained  in  consciousness  simply  because  a 
similar  episode  occurred  in  the  present  which  had  to  be  con- 
cealed. When  we  analyze  the  episode  we  find  that  it  in- 
volves essentially  the  destruction  of  young  life,  pups,  by 


i8o  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

water.  That  is  its  intrinsic  significance.  Now  jlist  as  in 
the  last  dream  that  we  have  considered,  the  present  situation 
showed  a  direct  analogy  to  some  situation  in  the  past,  a 
business  proposition  became  identified  by  analogy  with  a 
football  game,  so  we  have  to  discover  in  the  symptom  some 
fundamental  element  that  it  may  have  in  common  with  the 
early  childhood  reminiscence.  The  main  element  in  the 
symptom  that  one  should  seek  as  an  analogy  would  be  some 
form  of  destruction  of  life,  associated  somehow  with  water, 
which  must  have  occurred  later  in  this  young  woman's  life, 
because  we  are  always  deeply  affected  and  stirred  by  some 
present,  not  by  some  past  circumstance.  I  told  her  ac- 
cordingly that  I  suspected  that  she  had  some  sexual  trouble, 
that  it  had  something  to  do  with  an  abortion  or  some  similar 
experience ;  whereupon  she  disclosed  to  me  the  whole  state  of 
affairs.  She  informed  me  that  she  kept  company  with  a 
young  man  who  would  regularly  call  at  her  home,  that  when, 
to  her  great  dismay,  she  found  herself  pregnant  and  in- 
formed him  about  it,  he  upbraided  and  repulsed  her,  accus- 
ing her  of  having  had  sexual  relations  with  some  other  man. 
She  pleaded  with  him  and  he  finally  took  her  to  a  midwife 
who  performed  an  abortion.  But  that  did  not  end  here. 
Following  this,  she  was  compelled  to  treat  herself  with 
douches,  and  as  she  did  not  know  how  to  take  them  they 
caused  her  considerable  trouble  and  worriment.  Add  to  this 
the  fact  that  the  entire  affair  had  to  be  concealed  from  her 
mother  and  you  can  readily  imagine  in  what  a  pitiable  plight 
the  poor  girl  found  herself.  When  things  were  settled 
presently,  from  a  medical  viewpoint  at  any  rate,  she  began 
to  feel  the  mortification  of  the  past  and  it  was  about  six  or 
eight  weeks  following  the  painful  experience  that  she  had 
the  nervous  breakdown.  In  other  words,  she  could  no  longer 
conceal  the  terrible  misfortune  that  she  had  to  go  through; 
it  demanded  some  outlet,  some  form  of  expression.     But  as 


THE  DREAM:   ITS  FUNCTION  AND  MOTIVE  i8i 

she  could  not  openly  dwell  on  it,  she  took  unconsciously- 
some  similar  situation  in  the  past  and  endowed  it  with  all 
the  intensity  of  her  actual  state  of  feeling.  Shall  I  repeat 
again  that  whatever  we  experience,  no  matter  whether  it  be 
at  the  age  of  two,  three  or  four,  is  always  retained  in  the 
mind  and  recalled  on  the  appropriate  occasion  ?  The  present 
episode  keeps  on  revolving  in  the  mind  until  it  falls  into  the 
special  track  that  was  laid  out  for  it,  as  it  were,  from  the 
very  beginning,  because  of  some  intrinsic  element  of  simi- 
larity it  bears  to  the  early  experience.  And  when  we  re- 
member how  many  and  how  diverse  are  the  impressions  we 
receive  every  day,  we  will  not  find  it  hard  to  see  that  nothing 
that  happens  to-day  cannot  find  an  analogy  in  something  that 
has  occurred  in  the  past.  Imagine  the  impression  about  the 
drowning  pups  deep  down  in  the  unconscious ;  here  is  that 
powerful,  conscious  emotion  which  has  to  be  repressed  be- 
cause she  cannot  consciously  dwell  on  it,  and  naturally  by 
analogy,  it  falls  into  the  track  of  that  early  childhood  im- 
pression. The  same  elements  are  there :  the  attributes  of 
both  experiences  are  analogous,  that  is,  attribute  for  attribute. 
I  may  perhaps  make  this  a  little  clearer  by  an  illustration 
from  my  own  experience.  Last  week  I  was  walking  one 
very  frosty  evening  through  the  street  with  my  dog  when  his 
attention  was  attracted  by  sounds  coming  from  a  paper 
bundle  lying  in  the  middle  of  the  road.  I  heard  a  low,  moan- 
ing sound  coming  from  it  and  I  was  naturally  interested  to 
know  what  it  could  be.  On  coming  up  to  it  I  found  two 
little  pups  that  some  hard-hearted  person  must  have  exposed 
with  the  hope,  apparently,  that  they  would  freeze  to  death 
or  be  run  over  and  killed.  And  here  is  the  significant  thing : 
that  very  night  I  had  a  dream,  the  latent  content  of  which 
elicited  a  little  episode  that  I  heard  related  when  I  was  a  boy 
of  surely  no  more  than  eight  years  old.  It  was  about  some 
peasant  who  was  hung,  because  he  exposed  two  of  his  own 


1 82  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

babies  on  a  cold,  wintry  night,  thus  causing  their  death, 
simply  to  please  his  second  wife  who  hated  them  and  would 
not  let  them  in  the  house.  It  was  the  first  time  I  had  heard 
of  an  execution  and  it  evidently  made  a  profound  impression 
upon  me.  But  as  far  as  I  know,  I  had  never  thought  of  the 
episode  since  then.  But  you  see  the  moment  I  saw  these 
little  pups  exposed  to  the  freezing  weather  that  early  child- 
hood experience  was  unconsciously  revived  together  with  all 
its  attending  emotions.  That  is  the  way  the  mind  works; 
a  present  situation  may  evoke  from  the  past  some  early  im- 
pression by  reason  of  the  former's  intrinsic  element  of  con- 
trast or  analogy  to  the  early  experience.  We  may  see,  then, 
that  in  the  case  of  Miss  R.  the  concealing  memory  simply 
represented  what  happened  later.  It  is  interesting  to  mark 
that  the  latent  content  required  about  three  or  four  weeks 
to  reveal,  whereas  the  manifest  content  was  always  on  the 
surface.  The  moment  the  young  woman  began  to  grope 
about  unconsciously  for  a  reason  why  she  could  cry  about 
her  condition  in  public,  that  episode  from  the  remote  past 
was  revived  because  of  its  intrinsic  resemblance  to  the 
present  situation.  It  was  immediately  invested  with  all  the 
emotions,  and  what  was  more,  she  herself  did  not  have  the 
least  thought  that  it  was  really  over  the  later  episode  that  she 
was  crying.  She  did  not  deliberately  take  up  that  early 
childhood  memory  and  wail  over  it ;  it  was  all  unconscious  on 
her  part.  What  she  really,  then,  cried  over  was  the  im- 
mediate past,  the  terrible  anguish  and  keen  disappointment 
that  she  recently  had  to  bear.  She  had  accordingly  typical 
symptoms  of  anxiety  hysteria  and  to  physicians  who  are  not 
trained  in  psychiatric  work,  her  condition  seemed  to  re- 
semble the  manic  depressive  type  of  insanity. 

Thus,  then,  we  see  that  the  dream  and  the  symptom  show 
the  same  mechanisms,  both  show  a  definite  relation  to  the 


THE  DREAM:   ITS  FUNCTION  AND  MOTIVE  183 

inner  life  of  the  person,  both  are  incursions  into  conscious- 
ness from  the  unconscious,  and  that,  in  fine,  it  is  necessary  to 
get  at  what  we  call  their  "latent"  contents  to  grasp  their  es- 
sential significance  and  meaning. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
TYPES  OF  DREAMS 

We  have  discussed  thus  far  dreams  that  either  represent 
open  wishes,  like  convenient  dreams,  or  are  hidden  realiza- 
Anxiety  tions  of  a  repressed  wish.  The  latter  type  is  of 
Dreams  course  the  more  usual  and  I  have  given  you  a 
number  of  examples  of  it.  There  is  another  form  of  dreams 
which  realizes  fears,  as  it  were,  and  which  we  call  anxiety 
dreams;  we  say  that  the  anxiety  there  replaces  the  libido 
or  the  desire.  The  individual  is  overwhelmed  with  a  sense 
of  terror,  he  wakes  up  terrified  and  trembling.  It  is  the  sort 
of  dream  which  is  commonly  known  as  a  nightmare,  and  to 
one  unacquainted  with  the  deeper  mechanisms  of  dream 
formation  it  does  not  seem  to  represent  a  wish.  In  order  to 
understand  it,  it  is  necessary  to  understand  what  we  mean 
by  anxiety. 

Anxiety  or  fear  is  found  in  two  forms.  In  the  normal 
form,  it  is  a  protective  mechanism  which  is  found  in  every 
individual.  The  child  is  endowed  with  a  certain  amount  of 
fear  from  its  very  birth.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  an 
animal's  life  would  be  seriously  jeopardized  if  it  knew  no 
fear.  But  there  is  another  type  of  fear  or  anxiety  mani- 
festing itself  in  neurotic  disturbances,  that  we  recognize  as 
being  distinctly  abnormal.  Take,  for  instance,  the  case  of  a 
man  who  is  afraid  to  go  out  into  the  street  for  fear  lest  he 
be  run  over ;  he  realizes  too  well  how  absurd  and  ill- 
grounded  is  his  apprehension,  but  nilly  willy,  he  is  afraid  to 
leave  the  house.     Another  person  may  be  afraid  to  go  near  a 

184 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  185 

window,  lest  he  jump  out.  Of  course,  it  is  perfectly  natural 
for  the  average  person  to  experience  some  sense  of  uneasi- 
ness perhaps  when  standing  by  a  high  open  window,  but  he 
is  not  going  to  be  apprehensive  to  the  point  where  he  actually 
fears  to  go  near  it ;  yet  in  some  nervous  disturbance,  a  person 
will  under  no  circumstances  go  near  a  window,  because  he  is 
afraid  of  falling  out.  Likewise,  some  people  may  refuse  to 
cross  bridges :  "Suppose  the  bridge  breaks,"  they  will  argue. 
They  may  be  well-trained  engineers  and  realize  that  that  is 
impossible  or  most  improbable,  but  they  are  fearful  despite 
all  assurance.  The  fear,  in  other  words,  is  distinctly  patho- 
logical. 

When  we  analyze  cases  of  phobias  and  anxiety  states  we 
find  that  it  is  not  the  immediate  particular  situation,  that, 
to  be  more  explicit,  it  is  not  the  perception  of  the  probable 
immediate  danger  that  is  the  cause  of  the  fear,  but  some 
altogether  different  and  basic  condition ;  in  other  words,  that 
the  anxiety  is  merely  displaced  from  a  condition  to  which  it 
properly  belongs  to  an  altogether  different  idea.  We  have 
already  noted  this  displacement  of  anxiety  when  we  spoke 
about  the  psychology  of  the  fear  of  burglars.  It  was  ob- 
served also  that  this  fear  is  usually  found  among  women  who 
are  suffering  from  a  lack  of  sexual  outlet.  We  saw  that 
what  lies  back  of  it  is  nothing  but  the  unconscious  craving  for 
gross  or  physical  sex ;  but  as  the  woman  cannot  speak  about 
it  openly,  the  repressed  craving  unconsciously  attaches  itself 
to  some  analogous  situation  that  can  be  openly  dwelt  on, — 
an  illicit  intrusion  into  one's  private  room  for  which  she 
cannot  be  held  responsible.  It  is  only  a  disguised  expression 
of  the  real  craving.  The  biological  demands  of  life  crave  for 
an  outlet,  but  the  individual  has  been  so  well  trained  by 
society,  or  in  other  words,  the  repression  has  been  carried  to 
such  a  point  that  she  would  not  dare  even  admit  the  real 


i86  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

situation  to  herself.     The  craving  manifests  itself,  therefore, 
in  this  disguised  form. 

As  I  have  reiterated  so  frequently  in  the  past,  it  matters 
very  little  how  exacting  and  scrupulous  may  be  our  moral 
teachings  and  requirements,  there  are  the  actual  biological 
laws  or  demands  of  the  human  being  that  are  of  paramount 
consideration.  Biology  teaches  us  that  as  the  individual 
grows  older,  it  becomes  more  and  more  patent  what  his  mis- 
sion in  this  world  is  to  be, — namely,  to  mate  and  propagate 
his  kind.  This  sexual  function,  as  it  is  generally  termed, 
appears  from  the  very  beginning  of  our  existence,  and  as- 
sumes more  and  more  significance  and  importance  with  the 
advance  and  development  of  the  individual.  We  use  the 
word  "sex,"  of  course,  in  its  very  broadest  sense,  as  being 
synonymous  with  love,  but  it  may  interest  you  to  know,  that 
if  you  trace  the  origin  of  the  word  "love,"  you  will  find  that 
it  is  derived  from  a  word  in  Sanskrit  which  denotes  "lust" ; 
it  is  significant  that  the  word  for  "love"  in  Hebrew  means 
also  "lust."  The  ancients,  apparently,  have  made  no  mistake 
about  the  meaning  of  love ;  to  them  there  was  certainly  a  com- 
plete identification  of  love  and  what  we  generally  consider, 
with  no  little  degree  of  disparagement,  as  being  grossly  physi- 
cal or  sensual,  or  sex.  It  is  only  with  the  advance  of  Christian 
civilization  that  this  marked  contrast  has  grown  up,  that  one 
speaks  about  sex  as  something  base  and  ugly,  and  love  as  that 
divine  fire  of  which  the  poet  speaks  so  eloquently.  But  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  love  and  sex  are  one  and  the  same  thing;  we 
cannot  have  one  without  the  other.  It  is  useless  to  delude 
ourselves  into  the  belief  that  one  side  of  the  fact  is  sublime, 
while  the  other  that  has  to  do  with  the  service  of  propaga- 
tion is  low  and  degrading.  Of  course,  there  is  just  this 
much  to  be  said, — the  modern  individual  cannot  use  any  of 
his  functions  in  the  manner  of  our  primitive  ancestors,  and 
our  behavior  in  matin?  is  as  different  from  that  of  the 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  187 

savage  as  the  function  of  nourishment  in  modern  man  is 
different  from  that  in  his  primitive  brother.  We  have 
learned  that  certain  things  are  incompatible  with  our  en- 
vironment. But  it  would  be  just  as  ridiculous  to  suppose 
that  we  can  dispense  with  the  natural  sex  function  on  that 
account  as  it  would  be  to  suppose  that  we  can  dispense  with 
food,  because  we  do  not  eat  like  the  savage.  The  funda- 
mental necessity  remains,  and  no  law  can  be  evolved  that 
will  eliminate  it. 

To  be  sure,  we  had  no  quarrels  with  the  sex  function  as 
long  as  we  considered  it  beautiful  and  sacred.  We  know 
how  much  revered  it  was  in  early  religions.  Likewise  the 
child  sees  nothing  ugly  or  immoral  in  sex ;  we  know  how  it 
shows  no  scruples  in  exposing  itself  naked.  But  it  learns, 
in  time,  to  control  and  repress,  to  conceal  what  would  be 
obnoxious  to  its  environment.  And  thus  the  sex  impulses 
have  had  to  be  concealed  more  and  more  as  time  went  on. 
What  is  more,  it  was  found  necessary  with  the  advance  of 
civilization  to  defer  the  mating  instinct.  Animals  begin  to 
manifest  the  sex  impulse  at  an  early  age,  as  soon  as  they 
begin  to  walk.  The  same  is  found  among  primitive  races. 
Thus  among  the  natives  of  New  Guinea  many  travelers  have 
reported  sexual  practices  among  children  of  six  and  seven 
years.  The  situation  is  different  in  modern  times:  civiliza-' 
tion,  has  found  that  it  is  impossible  to  indulge  in  sex  at  the 
time  it  openly  manifests  itself,  and  sexual  gratification, 
therefore,  must  be  markedly  deferred.  Thus  with  the  ad- 
vance of  centuries  of  civilization,  particularly  with  the  rise 
and  spread  of  Christianity,  the  sex  instincts  have  been  more 
and  more  repressed,  so  that  now  the  whole  impulse  is  so 
distorted  that  it  appears  to  the  individual  incomprehensible 
and  baffling  to  the  last  degree,  and  it  is  actually  necessary  to 
enlighten  modern  men  and  women  in  matters  sexual.  I 
say  this  advisedly.     But  the  fact  remains  that  the  urge  is 


1 88  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

there,  and  whether  the  individual  desires  or  no,  it  always 
manifests  itself. 

Hence,  sex  in  our  sense  is  only  a  part  of  the  mating  im- 
pulse which  we  may  include  in  the  general  term  love.  Any 
manifestation  of  the  love  impulse,  be  it  in  the  child  or  the 
adult,  may  be  considered  as  a  phase  of  sex.  We  may  there- 
fore explain  on  this  same  basis  any  phobia  or  pathological 
fear  even  in  children,  except,  of  course,  that  we  must  bear  in 
mind  that  here  the  phobia  deals  with  infantile  love.  Only 
four  or  five  weeks  ago  a  little  girl  of  ten  was  brought  to  me 
because  she  was  afraid  that  burglars  might  enter  her  room ; 
she  absolutely  would  not  sleep  alone.  Formerly  she  was  ac- 
customed to  sleep  in  a  room  all  by  herself;  but  now  she  was 
so  afraid  that  the  only  way  to  quiet  her  was  to  take  her  into 
the  parents'  bed ;  otherwise  she  would  not  fall  asleep.  The 
cure  consisted  in  just  analyzing  with  the  child  frankly  and 
simply  the  basic  sexual  significance  of  the  situation.  I  con- 
fess, I  was  a  little  surprised  when  the  little  girl  informed  me 
that  what  puzzled  her  so  much  was  that  her  mother  told  her 
about  child  birth,  but  failed  to  explain  to  her  how  child  birth 
started.  "How  does  it  happen  that  the  child  grows  in  the 
mother's  womb  like  a  flower  ?"  the  little  girl  asked  me.  The 
mother  had  apparently  related  only  part  of  the  story.  I  ex- 
plained to  the  little  girl  the  significant  aspects  of  the  problem, 
and  it  was  really  quite  impressive  to  see  how  grateful  she 
felt  for  the  information.  "I  learned  so  much  to-day  from 
Dr.  Brill,"  she  remarked.  "Why  do  you  call  him  a  doctor ; 
he  is  more  like  a  teacher."  The  child  was  cured  after  she 
realized  that  her  fear  was  nothing  but  her  desire  to  have  her 
mother  and  father  with  her.  She  had  been  very  much 
coddled  by  the  parents ;  her  father  particularly  had  been  too 
lavish  in  his  afifections,  he  used  to  fondle  and  kiss  her  al- 
together too  much  and  now  her  emotions  could  no  longer  be 
contained    and   welled    forth    overwhelmingly    stjong.     By 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  189 

helping  this  child  to  understand  this,  and  adjusting  her  love- 
life  generally,  the  phobia  disappeared. 

To  understand  better  how  the  direct  sex  demands  manifest 
themselves  in  the  anxiety  dream,  it  may  be  well  perhaps  to 
consider  with  you  in  some  details  the  three  phases  of  sex 
life  as  propounded  by  Prof.  Freud:  first,  the  autoerotic, 
second  the  narcistic,  and  third  the  object  love.  The  term 
autoerotic  you  can  readily  translate  into  self-sufficient,  self- 
gratified,  or  self-adequate.  The  child  shows  a  sexual  life 
from  the  very  beginning,  but  it  is  very  different,  of  course, 
from  that  of  the  adult.  That  is  only  natural ;  it  can  no  more 
experience  the  sex  emotions  like  the  adult  than  it  can  run 
or  talk  like  him.  In  the  second  stage,  which  begins  at  about 
two  and  a  half,  or  three  and  a  half  years,  the  child  is  pre- 
dominately interested  in  his  own  body.  Then  we  have  the 
latency  period,  from  about  four  to  eight,  followed  by  the 
prepubescent  age  from  about  eight  through  eleven.  Now 
comes  puberty.  We  must  bear  in  mind  that  it  is  during  the 
latency  period  that  the  child  receives  most  of  those  impres- 
sions which  prepare  it  for  life.  To  be  sure,  it  begins  to  take 
on  impressions  from  the  very  beginning  of  its  existence; 
but  it  is  in  this  period,  which  we  may  justly  call  the  school 
period,  that  it  actually  begins  to  learn  how  to  adjust  itself  to 
society.  The  definite  phase  of  adjustment  which  we  asso- 
ciate generally  with  education  really  starts  at  the  latency 
period  when  the  child  begins  to  go  to  school.  It  has,  of 
course,  already  a  certain  adjustment  as  a  result  of  its  home 
training,  and  the  observant  teacher  will  attest  to  the  fact 
that  the  child  shows  even  at  this  early  age  a  very  character- 
istic mode  of  reacting  to  its  environment.  In  other  words, 
before  entering  school  the  child  already  has  a  definite  adjust- 
ment which  is  a  product  of  its  home  development.  The 
teacher,  therefore,  is  not  to  be  blamed  for  a  child's  mal- 
adjustment, because  she  is  coping  with  a  condition  that  from 


I90  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

the  very  outset  was  not  strictly  normal.  If  a  child  has  not 
done  well  up  to  the  age  of  eight,  it  will  always  be  a  ne'er-do- 
well ;  if  it  is  defective,  its  abnormality  will  become  manifest 
at  the  outset,  and  it  will  not  outgrow  it,  as  people  generally 
suppose.  A  child  shows  from  the  very  beginning  just  what 
the  nature  of  its  future  adjustment  will  be. 

It  is  commonly  supposed  that  the  latency  period  shows  no 
sex  manifestations.  Careful  observation,  however,  points 
very  definitely  in  the  opposite  direction.  It  is  a  period  in 
which  sex  is  only  apparently  absent ;  investigate  a  Httle  and 
you  will  learn  from  teachers  and  parents  that  all  kinds  of 
sexual  manifestations  are  in  evidence  at  that  age  in  the  class 
room  and  at  home.  They  are,  of  course,  not  so  prominent ; 
the  child  does  not  usually  occupy  himself  with  distinct  sexual 
problems.  That  sexual  inquisitiveness  of  the  earlier  years 
seems  to  have  lost  its  keen  edge;  we  hear  no  more  that  in- 
sistent query,  "Where  do  children  come  from?"  It  either 
has  received  its  information  by  the  age  of  four  or  has  been 
squelched  so  well  that  it  dare  not  ask  the  parents  another 
question. 

The  period  of  object  love  sets  in  at  the  age  of  nine  or  ten, 
around  the  prepubescent  age ;  the  boy  and  the  girl  now  show 
that  they  are  ready  to  adjust  themselves  to  the  world  in  a 
definite  way.  The  child  no  longer  shows  the  same  reactions 
to  both  sexes.  At  the  age  of  puberty  one  observes  marked 
character  changes  in  both  sexes;  it  is  then  that  the  sexual 
factors  become  manifest  and  specialized.  The  boy  develops 
into  manhood  and  shows  an  aggressive  sexual  make-up,  and 
the  girl,  developing  into  womanhood  evinces  a  passive  or 
negatively  aggressive  sexuality.  I  have  collected  dreams  of 
children  of  about  the  pubescent  age,  and  it  is  instructive  to 
note  how  the  dreams  all  showed  the  definite  biological  factors 
that  may  be  observed  in  the  development  of  both  sexes;  the 
boys'  dreams  always  dealt  with  active  aggressions,  and  the 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  191 

girls'  with  passivity,  with  being  pursued,  caught  or  overcome. 
A  number  of  teachers  collected  for  me  dreams  of  pubescent 
children,  and  no  matter  from  what  station  of  life  the  children 
came  the  results  were  always  the  same;  their  dreams  all 
showed  the  same  characteristic  biological  reactions.  It  is 
noteworthy  that  anxiety  dreams  are  particularly  prevalent 
among  girls  of  fourteen  and  fifteen;  for  it  is  at  this  age  that 
the  girl  becomes  aware  of  the  sex  urge,  but  cannot  as  yet 
place  her  emotions  properly,  slie  has  not  as  yet  adjusted  her- 
self to  the  new  life. 

The  pubescent  age  is  also  the  period  when  most  mental 
breakdowns  start.  One  of  the  worst  forms  of  mental 
diseases,  dementia  praecox,  starts  at  about  the  ages  of  four- 
teen and  fifteen;  probably  75%  of  the  attacks  occur  between 
the  ages  of  fourteen  and  eighteen,  90%  between  the  ages  of 
fifteen  and  twenty-five,  the  others  coming  later.  Indeed, 
dementia  praecox  has  been  designated  by  many  writers  as 
an  insanity  of  pubescence.  As  a  specialist  in  nervous 
diseases,  I  may  say  that  if  a  child  successfully  tides  over  its 
pubescent  age,  that  is,  the  period  from  about  twelve  to  fifteen 
years,  then  there  is  no  cause  for  apprehension.  If  every- 
thing goes  well  at  this  time,  it  is  indeed  rare  to  find  some 
nervous  or  emotional  breakdown  in  later  years.  In  other 
words,  an  adequate  adjustment  now  means  an  adequate  ad- 
justment in  the  future.  In  this  adjustment,  of  course,  the 
sexual  or  emotional  factor  is  of  paramount  importance  and 
that  is  why  it  may  be  said  that  an  individual  who  is  not  well 
adjusted  in  his  emotional  or  erotic  life,  remains  inadequately 
adjusted  in  every  other  phase  of  his  existence.  We  may 
posit  it  as  a  general  principle  that  one's  sex  life  is  always  re- 
flected in  the  general  psychic  condition  of  the  entire  person ; 
abnormal  sex  life  always  interferes  with  normal  functioning 
in  the  other  spheres  of  life. 

The  biologic  principles,  or  the  direct  sex  demands  mani- 


192  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

fest  themselves  all  the  time.  In  the  dream  they  appear  in  the 
form  of  anxiety  or  fear.  Let  me  give  you  some  illustra- 
tions. A  woman  related  to  me  this  dream :  A  colored  man 
pursued  her  nnth  a  knife,  and  it  was  only  after  a  long 
struggle  that  she  zvrested  the  deadly  weapon  from  him.  She 
azvoke,  terrified,  her  heart  heating  wildly.  When  I  called 
for  associations,  I  learned  that  her  mother  was  always  afraid 
to  leave  her  alone  at  home  because  of  the  colored  butler, 
who  is  a  quiet,  inoffensive  creature.  When  asked  what 
reason  she  thought  her  mother  had  for  fearing  to  leave  her 
alone  with  the  servant,  she  replied,  "Well,  you  know  I 
read  recently  about  colored  men  in  the  south  assaulting 
white  women.  Mother  reads  the  same  paper  that  I  do  and 
must  have  probably  read  that  account  also,  and  so  she  must 
be  more  afraid  than  ever."  The  dream  is  simply  a  realiza- 
tion of  a  wish ;  unconsciously  the  young  woman's  own  crav- 
ing for  sex  manifested  itself  in  this  concealed  way.  The  ac- 
count that  she  had  read  in  the  newspaper  the  day  before  only 
served  as  a  determinant  for  the  dream ;  the  emotions,  the  un- 
conscious craving  were  there  all  the  time  waiting  for  an 
appropriate  stimulus  to  call  them  into  play. 

There  is  thus  not  an  event  occurring  in  this  world  but 
what  calls  forth  some  repressed  emotion  in  the  unconscious, 
and  acts  as  a  determinant  not  only  for  dreams,  but  for 
hysterical  symptoms  and  other  normal  and  abnormal  phe- 
nomena. Perhaps  you  may  remember  the  time  when  there 
was  so  much  ado  and  excitement  about  "the  poison  needle," 
when  women  were  reported  to  have  been  taken  into  white 
slavery  by  the  thousands.  Some  vicious  man,  it  was  ru- 
mored, would  stick  a  poison  needle  into  a  girl,  drag  her  into 
a  taxi  when  she  fainted  and  hurry  her  off  to  a  house  of  ill 
repute.  It  mattered  little  that  scientists  protested  that  there 
could  be  no  such  poison  that  would  render  a  person  uncon- 
scious immediately.     The  police  were  kept  quite  active  and 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  193 

arrests  were  made,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  there  was  not  a 
single  authentic  case  of  "the  poison  needle"  throughout  the 
United  States.  It  was  quite  instructive  to  me  to  observe  that 
there  was  hardly  a  woman  I  was  treating  at  that  time  who 
did  not  tell  me  that  she  dreamed  or  fancied  about  being 
poisoned,  attacked  and  sold  into  white  slavery. 

The  unconscious  always  draws  upon  the  environment  for 
expression;  it  always  utilizes  some  appropriate  situation  for 
the  expression  of  repressed  emotions.  I  know  I  may  shock 
some  of  you  by  asserting  that  the  late  war  offered  an  ex- 
cellent outlet  to  some  people ;  that  is  why  so  many  men  and 
women  experienced  nervous  breakdowns  after  the  armis- 
tice was  signed.  I  had  occasion  to  see  a  few  soldiers  then 
who  had  gone  through  the  fighting  without  receiving  the 
slightest  wound,  but  who  broke  down  when  they  came  on 
board  the  ship  bound  for  home.  They  were  supposed  to 
have  been  "shell  shocked;"  but  the  real  difficulty  was  that 
they  were  cut  off  from  an  excellent  outlet  for  their  primitive 
impulses.  The  same  thing  applied  to  those  who  did  not 
actively  participate  in  the  fighting ;  there  were  quite  a  number 
of  women  who  became  markedly  depressed,  as  the  soldiers 
returned  from  overseas  and  were  discharged.  There  was  to 
be  no  more  prospect  of  working  in  canteens,  driving  am- 
bulances, nursing  the  sick  heroes  in  the  hospitals.  We  were 
to  have  no  more  of  these  sadistic  or  masochistic  outlets.  And 
what  a  terrible  void  opened  up  before  those  women! 

In  the  same  way  the  Titanic  disaster  acted  as  a  marked 
determinant  for  dreams.  One  woman  related  to  me  the  fol- 
lowing dream  relating  to  the  catastrophe:  She  was  on  the 
ship  when  it  was  sinking;  there  were  the  terrible  cries  of 
panic-stricken  women  and  children.  Then  some  one  cried 
out:  "Women  and  children  first."  She  refused  to  leave 
her  husband.  An  officer  came  up  and  tore  her  away  from 
him,  despite  her  loud  protests.     She  woke  up  crying,  seized 


194  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

with  terror.  I  knew  this  woman's  history  so  thoroughly 
that  it  was  not  difficult  for  me  to  see  at  once  the  meaning  of 
the  dream.  When  I  asked  her  for  associations  there  was  the 
natural  determinant ;  she  had  read  on  the  previous  day  how 
the  wife  of  a  prominent  man  on  board  the  Titanic  actually 
refused  to  be  separated  from  her  husband  and  bravely  met 
death  with  him  without  flinching.  In  the  dream,  as  you  may 
see,  the  situation  was  quite  the  reverse:  she  was  terribly 
grieved  because  she  was  torn  away  from  her  husband.  Now 
the  crux  of  the  whole  situation  was  that  she  was  in  love  with 
an  officer  who  was  stationed  right  near  here ;  she  experienced 
a  great  many  struggles  with  herself  about  the  whole  affair ; 
that  was  one  of  the  reasons  why  she  came  to  me  for  treat- 
ment. Consciously,  of  course,  she  would  not  yield  to  the 
officer,  but  unconsciously  in  the  dream,  she  submits  and  we 
see  her  actually  separated  from  her  husband.  On  the  one 
hand,  then,  we  see  the  wish  motive,  on  the  other,  the  anxiety 
which  is  merely  the  conflict  between  the  two  opposing  psy- 
chic forces,  representing  the  converted  libido.  Thus  the 
dream  strictly  had  little  to  do  with  the  Titanic  catastrophe  ; 
the  latter  only  served  as  the  medium  through  which  she  was 
able  to  give  vent  to  her  repressed  emotions. 

The  anxiety  dreams,  then,  show  a  definite  form  of  un- 
conscious reaction  to  craving,  to  unadjXisted  emotions,  in 
which  the  anxiety  takes  the  place  of  the  libido.  Later  on, 
when  we  take  up  day  dreaming,  we  shall  see  that  some 
women  go  through  these  mechanisms  without  sleeping. 
They  play  with  the  idea  consciously ;  they  entertain  "Diirnen 
phantasien,"  prostitution  fancies,  quite  openly.  Such 
women  either  do  not  suppress  or  have  sexually  emancipated 
themselves.  The  others  can  give  vent  to  their  unadjusted 
emotions  through  unconscious  mentation,  and  it  is  the 
anxiety  dream  that  lends  itself  to  just  that  type  of  outlet. 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  195 

When  we  delve  into  the  mainsprings  of  the  dream,  we 
find  that  it  is  a  product  of  some  conscious  experience  or 
fancy  that  the  individual  invariably  represses  by 
reason   of   its  painful   and   unattainable   nature.     Drc^as^^ 
That  is  why  we  find,  upon  investigation,  that  day      ^y^g- 
dreams  and  fancies  which  are  more  or  less  con- 
scious mental  activities,  show  exactly  the  same  mechanisms 
as  the  dream,  and  reveal  just  as  markedly  a  person's  char- 
acter and  inner  problem.     Analysis  shows  that  they  are  in- 
variably  wishes.     Thus    that    spontaneous    mental   activity 
known  as  "building  castles  in  the  air"  enables  us  to  gain  as 
profound  an  insight  into  the  individual's  deeper  striving  and 
desires  as  the  dream  itself. 

This  intimate  relation  existing  between  the  dream  and 
the  day  dream  is  found  also  between  the  dream  and  another 
type  of  unconscious  mentation  which  may  be  designated  as 
"artificial  dreams."  Cy  artificial  dreams  we  understand 
those  dreams  which  a  person  consciously  makes  up  at  the  re- 
quest of  the  physician.  The  patient  is  requested  to  make  up 
a  dream  by  imitating  what  he  regards  as  a  real  dream.  He  is 
instructed  to  talk  at  random  without  guiding  his  thoughts. 
The  production  obtained  in  this  manner  is  recorded  and 
analyzed  in  accordance  with  the  rules.  What  the  patient 
will  produce  for  you  may  sound  very  stupid  to  him  and  may 
seem  to  him  to  bear  no  relation  to  his  own  inner  problems, 
but  as  a  matter  of  fact  you  will  find,  upon  analyzing  it,  that 
it  is  just  as  significant  as  an  actual  dream  and  reveals  just 
as  markedly  the  deeper  problems  and  conflicts  in  the  psychic 
life.  I  came  upon  the  subject  of  artificial  dreams  in  the 
following  manner : 

I  was  treating  a  physician,  an  unmarried  man,  about 
thirty  years  old,  who  was  suffering  from  a  rather  deep-seated 
psychoneurotic  disturbance.  He  was  one  of  those  patients 
who  claim  that  they  do  not  dream ;  after  assuring  him,  how- 


196  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

ever,  it  is  merely  a  question  of  remembering  the  dream,  he 
came  to  me  one  morning  and  gave  me  the  following  dream : 
"I  was  giving  birth  to  a  child,  and  felt  very  severe  labor 
pains.  My  friend  X.  acted  as  accoucheur  (midwife) ;  he 
stuck  the  forceps  into  me  more  like  a  butcher  than  a  physi- 
cian. Of  course,"  he  said,  "X.  is  not  a  physician,  he  is 
a  business  man."  I  proceeded  to  analyze  the  dream  by 
asking  the  patient  to  tell  me  something  about  X.  "He  is  a 
very  good  friend  of  mine,  but  of  late  we  have  drifted  apart," 
he  replied.  I  was  interested  to  know  the  reason  for  this. 
"I  did  not  like  some  of  the  people  in  whom  X,  was  inter- 
ested," I  learned.  "Is  that  the  only  reason  why  you  drifted 
apart?"  I  continued.  "I  believe  so."  The  patient  then  went 
into  details  about  his  relationship  with  X.  I  observed  finally : 
"You  seem  to  be  jealous  of  X."  "Yes,  that  is  what  X, 
claims."  "Well,"  I  went  on,  "but  jealousy  is  perfectly 
justified  only  when  a  person  of  the  opposite  sex  is  concerned, 
but  you  are  jealous  when  X.  talks  to  other  men."  He  then 
laughed:  "You  know,  I  always  thought  that  this  dream 
business  is  claptrap.  Now  I  can  see  it ;  you  asked  me  to  give 
you  a  dream  and  I  thought  I  would  make  one  up.  I  never 
dreamed  it.  I  was  only  fooling  you."  I  must  confess  I  was 
a  little  surprised  to  hear  this,  but  his  apparently  innocent 
piece  of  fabrication  revealed  to  me  all  the  same  the  very 
thing  I  was  looking  for  all  the  time.  A  dream  such  as  this 
could  only  come  from  a  homosexual,  and  indeed,  from  the 
very  beginning  I  suspected  that  he  was  an  invert.  I  asked 
him  to  go  on  with  the  analysis  of  the  dream  but  he  dryly 
protested,  "There's  no  use ;  I  made  it  up."  I  insisted  that  he 
continue.  He  refused  and  became  very  angry,  whereupon 
I  simply  told  him  my  analysis.  "You  are  a  homosexual, 
and  in  love  with  Mr.  X. ;  only  a  man  who  identifies  himself 
with  a  woman  dreams  that  he  gives  birth  to  a  child."  He 
left  me  in  quite  a  sullen  mood,  but  returned  very  soon  and 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  197 

informed  me  that  my  diagnosis  was  correct,  but  that  it  was 
hard  for  him  to  acknowledge  that  he  was  homosexual. 

The  case  gave  me  much  food  for  reflection.  It  demon- 
strated to  me  very  definitely  that  one  can  actually  resort  to 
the  analysis  of  artificial  dreams  to  gain  an  insight  into  the 
patient's  psychic  life.  What  surprised  me  at  first  was  that 
we  never  seemed  to  have  thought  about  the  matter  before, 
but  upon  investigating  the  subject,  I  soon  found  that  Prof. 
Bleuler  had  touched  on  it,  stating  that  such  artificial  pro- 
ductions are  not  at  all  impossible.  Since  that  case,  I  resort 
to  artificial  dreams  whenever  a  patient  fails  to  bring  me 
dreams,  claiming  that  he  does  not  dream,  or  whenever  a 
patient  suddenly  stops  dreaming  because  of  some  unconscious 
resistance.  Analysis  of  such  a  dream  usually  brings  to  the 
surface  those  factors  which  were  at  the  base  of  these  re- 
sistances, which  can  then  be  removed.  Of  course,  this  is  not 
as  easy  as  it  may  appear,  for  it  is  a  significant  fact  that  most 
people  who  insist  that  they  do  not  dream  will  declare  just  as 
strongly  that  they  cannot  make  up  a  dream.  The  same  re- 
sistances that  hinder  them  from  bringing  the  physician  their 
dreams  prevent  them  also  from  making  up  dreams.  There 
is  no  doubt,  however,  that  with  continued  urging  on  the 
part  of  the  physician,  they  can  be  led  to  give  some  produc- 
tions.    Here  are  a  few  that  I  have  reported. 

"/  do  something  that  meets  with  my  parents'  disapproval. 
I  am  afraid  of  my  father,  as  if  I  were  a  child."  When  I 
asked  the  dreamer  for  associations,  he  replied  that  he  had 
none,  but  that  he  would  invent  another  dream.  The  latter 
ran  as  follows :  "I  see  an  old  woman  crying.  She  is  evi- 
dently trying  to  decipher  shorthand  notes."  He  began  to 
associate  and  thought  at  once  of  a  certain  woman,  a  stenog- 
rapher, his  senior  by  five  years.  He  had  met  her  in  a  very 
questionable  environment,  while  carousing  with  friends,  fell 
in  love  with  her  and  offered  to  marry  her.    She  soon  prom- 


198  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

ised  to  reform,  took  up  stenography,  and  through  his 
influence  obtained  a  position  in  his  father's  office.  When  he 
finally  spoke  about  her  to  the  father,  who  knew  nothing  of 
the  woman's  past,  the  latter  at  first  refused  his  consent,  but 
later  showed  signs  of  relenting.  It  was  then  that  the  patient 
himself  began  to  doubt  the  wisdom  of  his  contemplated 
matrimonial  venture.  Most  of  his  friends  knew  about  her 
former  life,  and  strongly  advised  him  against  marrying  her. 
He  knew  that  he  would  have  to  renounce  all  his  social  con- 
nections and  feared  lest  his  father  should  discover  the  true 
facts  concerning  her  past.  It  was  this  conflict,  coupled 
with  other  factors,  that  revived  a  dormant  psychoneurosis. 
I  may  also  add  that  while  under  treatment  he  consciously 
withheld  the  most  important  facts  in  his  love  affair ;  he  told 
me  nothing  about  how  he  met  her,  or  who  she  was.  He  did 
not  think  it  was  necessary  for  me  to  know  this.  Indeed, 
such  things  are  usually  passed  over  by  the  patient  as  being 
trivial  and  unimportant;  he  simply  does  not  deem  them 
worth  while  to  relate. 

The  first  production :  "I  do  something  that  meets  with  my 
parents'  disapproval.  I  am  afraid  of  my  father  as  if  I  were 
a  child,"  recalled  the  patient's  early  childhood  when  he  often 
feared  his  father's  wrath  for  wetting  the  bed.  The  under- 
lying thought  was  that  should  he  now  enter  into  this  con- 
templated matrimony,  he  would  again  soil  his  bed  and  be 
punished  by  his  father.  The  second  dream,  "I  saw  an  old 
woman  crying,  etc.,"  expresses  his  wish  to  get  rid  of  the 
woman.  She  was  indeed  a  poor  stenographer  and  would 
have  been  discharged  long  before  had  it  not  been  for  his 
intercession.  The  dream  shows  that  she  leaves  voluntarily 
because  she  cannot  hold  a  position  in  his  family,  i.e.,  she 
cannot  be  his  wife. 

Another  patient,  Mrs.  C,  a  young  married  woman  suffer- 
ing from  a  mild  form  of  dementia  praecox,  gave  me,  after 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  199 

strong  urging,  the  following  artificial  dream.  Patients  of 
the  dementia  prsecox  type  are  usually  very  inaccessible  and 
the  artificial  dream  is  often  the  only  way  of  entering  into 
their  mind.  "I  zvent  into  a  garden  where  there  were  many 
people.  One  of  the  ladies  fell  in  love  with  one  of  the  gentle- 
man sitting  on  the  bench.  They  exchanged  all  sorts  of 
endearing  terms  until  the  lady  proposed  marriage.  They 
married  and  were  very  happy."  This  dream  is  quite  simple : 
it  shows  little  distortion,  it  is  a  sort  of  open  wish.  As  Mrs. 
C.  is  a  married  woman  the  question  that  naturally  suggests 
itself  is:  "Who  is  the  man?"  Certainly  he  is  not  her  own 
husband;  there  would  be  no  need  for  that.  The  dreamer 
herself  apparently  is  under  the  disguise  of  the  lady  who 
proposed  to  the  gentleman,  in  accordance  with  the  well- 
known  principle  of  dream  analysis,  that  the  dreamer  is 
always  the  central  figure  in  the  dream.  Mrs.  C.  was  a 
shut-in  type  of  person,  extremely  inaccessible.  Whenever  I 
made  any  efiforts  to  question  her  about  her  intimate  life,  she 
would  say :  "I  am  perfectly  happy  with  my  husband.  I  have 
nothing  to  tell  you."  But  when  I  asked  her  to  tell  me  the 
person,  the  "gentleman,"  in  the  dream  recalled  to  her,  she 
immediately  informed  me  that  it  was  the  family  physician ; 
she  remembered  distinctly  that  the  physician  looked  very 
much  like  him.  As  she  could  give  me  very  little  further 
information,  I  observed :  "It  would  seem  that  you  had  an 
amour  with  the  physician,  or  that  you  undoubtedly  desired 
to  have  one."  She  admitted  that  for  years  she  had  been  very 
attached  to  the  doctor.  She  did  not  tell  me  of  this  before, 
because  she  could  not  see  what  bearing  it  had  upon  the  treat- 
ment. And  yet,  I  must  have  you  mark  very  carefully,  it  is 
the  conflict  arising  from  this  experience  that  finally  precipi- 
tated her  mental  condition ;  it  was  the  exciting  factor  of  the 
disease. 

Since  my  experience  with  that  first  patient  who  deliber- 


200  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

ately  attempted  to  mislead  me  by  making  up  what  he  thought 
a  senseless  production,  I  have  collected  quite  a  number  of 
artificial  dreams.  Though  most  of  them  are  by  no  means 
as  simple  as  those  I  have  just  given  you,  they  all  may  very 
readily  be  analyzed ;  indeed,  they  are  easier  to  analyze  than 
actual  dreams. 

Let  me  say  at  this  point  that  one  of  the  objections  to  dream 
analysis  advanced  by  some  investigators  is  that  the  dreamer 
in  recounting  the  dream  consciously  or  unconsciously  fills  up 
the  gaps  which  originally  existed  in  the  dream  and  thus 
introduces  elements  that  strictly  do  not  belong  to  it;  they 
maintain  that  the  dream  that  you  commit  to  writing  is  no 
longer  the  real  dream,  a  great  deal  of  it  is  forgotten,  and 
much  new  material  creeps  in.  But  you  see  how  this  makes 
no  material  difference  in  the  analysis,  for  whatever  the 
dreamer  inserts  into  the  dream  bears  an  intimate  relation 
to  his  own  inner  problems :  the  dreamer  consciously  or  un- 
consciously will  always  gravitate  toward  his  own  inner 
strivings. 

My  experience  with  artificial  dreams  led  me  into  quite 
another  field  of  investigation,  the  problem  of  lying.  Con- 
siderable study  and  experience  convinced  me  that  the  lie, 
like  the  dream,  is  nothing  but  a  direct  or  indirect  wish. 
Every  piece  of  fabrication,  whether  simple  or  complex, 
represents  essentially  a  condition  that  the  person  desires  to 
see  realized.  Frankly,  I  am  sometimes  pleased  when  a 
patient  lies  to  me,  either  quite  deliberately  or  unconsciously; 
he  is  thereby  only  giving  me  another  clue  to  his  neurosis. 
For  every  lie,  even  in  a  normal  person,  is  but  an  expression 
of  the  wish-motive,  and  deals  naturally  with  material  of 
marked  importance  and  interest  in  the  individual  concerned. 

Lying  is  one  of  the  defense  mechanisms  that  helps  the 
individual  out  of  difficulties.  When  done  with  that  in  view, 
the  lie  is  often  designated  as  a  "white  lie."    Thus  we  have 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  201 

a  double  standard  of  lying,  the  "white  lie"  which  is  pardon- 
able, and  the  lie  made  with  malicious  intent,  or  done  habitu- 
ally, just  for  the  sake  of  lying.  That  the  "white  He"  is  just 
another  mode  of  self -protection,  that  it  has,  we  might  say, 
as  useful  a  function  as  teeth  and  claws,  is  well  borne  out  by 
the  fact  that  primitive  people  and  lower  races,  like  the 
negroes  and  Indians,  for  example,  invariably  lie  when  they 
wish  to  get  out  of  some  difficulty.  The  same  condition 
obtains  among  children.  They  invariably  show  a  tendency 
to  fabricate.  Such  a  tendency  among  children  cannot  be 
considered  pathological.  It  simply  denotes  a  premature 
mentality ;  children,  as  we  know,  have  not  as  yet  assumed 
all  the  necessary  ethical  inhibitions  and  therefore  follow  their 
impulses.  Whenever  they  find  themselves  in  any  difficulty 
they  do  not  hesitate  to  get  out  of  it  through  lying.  Thus 
a  boy  of  four,  having  broken  a  dish,  insisted  that  a  servant 
did  it;  an  older  boy,  having  been  detected  playing  truant, 
asserted  that  his  teacher  was  sick. 

We  should  always  assume  a  more  or  less  sensible  attitude 
to  lying  in  children.  They  should  be  taught,  of  course,  not 
to  do  so,  but  it  is  to  be  expected  and  regarded  as  more  or 
less  natural.  They  should  be  trained  to  tell  the  truth  with- 
out resorting  to  emotional  outbursts,  for  it  is  certain  that  we 
can  always  accomplish  much  more  with  the  child  by  entering 
into  rapport  with  him,  by  gaining  his  confidence  and  love. 
How  much  harm  is  often  done  by  resorting  to  marked 
emotionalism  in  our  attitude  toward  the  child's  lie  may  be 
seen  from  the  following  case : 

Mrs.  F.,  a  woman  of  thirty-five,  married,  complained 
among  other  things,  of  having  a  very  strong  tendency  to  lie. 
As  far  as  I  could  observe,  she  was  perfectly  normal  mentally, 
so  that  one  could  regard  her  condition  as  merely  a  bad  habit. 
But  we  know,  from  psychoanalytic  study  and  experience, 
that  there  must  be  something  in  the  individual's  psychic  life 


202  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

that  feeds  that  habit,  that  gives  it  its  motive  force.  Apropos 
of  the  symptom,  her  history  was  as  follows :  At  the  age  of 
eight  she  lived  in  a  small  locality  where,  among  the  very  few 
children  who  played  with  her  there  was  a  boy  of  eleven  with 
whom  she  associated  very  much.  One  day  he  exposed 
himself  to  her,  and  she  played  sexually  with  him.  This  con- 
tinued for  a  few  months  perhaps,  when  her  grandmother 
noticed  it.  The  boy  got  a  terrible  beating  and  the  girl  re- 
ceived a  good  tongue  lashing,  although  she  was  more  or  less 
excused  as  she  was  only  a  little  girl.  She  was  not  allowed, 
however,  to  see  her  companion  any  more.  Her  mother,  who 
was  away  at  this  time,  presently  returned  and  the  little  girl, 
in  an  outburst  of  confidence  related  everything  that  occurred 
during  her  absence,  not  failing  to  mention  also  the  experience 
with  the  little  boy.  Far  from  being  pleased  that  her  daughter 
voluntarily  and  frankly  revealed  to  her  what  transpired  be- 
tween the  two  children,  she  flew  into  a  rage  and  beat  the 
little  girl  most  severely,  despite  the  fact  that  she  had  never 
before  administered  any  form  of  corporal  punishment  to  the 
child.  She  then  locked  her  up  in  a  room  and  kept  her  there 
on  bread  and  water  for  quite  a  while.  Following  this,  she 
continued  to  remind  the  girl  all  the  time  of  the  terrible 
transgression  that  was  committed.  When  twelve  years  old, 
the  girl  attended  with  her  mother  a  funeral  of  a  boy  of 
fourteen  who  met  with  an  accident  and  was  killed.  On  her 
way  to  the  funeral,  the  mother  observed :  "When  you  get 
there,  you  will  see  his  parents  in  a  state  of  terrible  anguish ; 
they  feel  heart  broken  at  the  death  of  their  young  boy, 
snatched  from  them  at  so  young  an  age.  But  do  you  know, 
I  would  have  rather  seen  you  die  than  to  have  done  what 
you  did?"  That  is  how  stupidly  and  deeply  the  mother 
reacted  to  the  situation.  The  grandmother  would  accord- 
ingly remind  the  girl:  "Now  you  see,  if  you  only  had  kept 
your  tongue,  as  I  told  you  to  do."     That  marked  a  turning 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  203 

point  in  the  patient's  whole  life.  There  was  a  marked  change 
in  her  relations  to  her  mother  and  to  the  world.  She  now 
lied  frequently  to  her  parent :  she  actually  "kept  her  tongue" 
as  her  grandmother  had  wisely  counselled  her.  And  as  she 
reacted  to  the  mother  she  gradually  reacted  to  the  whole 
world;  what  happened  was  that  unconsciously  she  was  con- 
stantly trying  to  rebel  against  her  mother  by  no  longer 
revealing  the  truth  as  she  did  on  that  unfortunate  occasion. 
The  symptom  caused  her  much  discomfort  and  unpleasant- 
ness. Sometimes,  for  instance,  she  would  be  out  socially,  and 
in  speaking  about  some  book  or  play  would  deliberately 
distort  the  facts.  She  was  conscious  of  it,  but  could  do 
nothing  to  correct  the  condition,  it  was  a  sort  of  obsession 
with  her. 

Such  cases  are  not  at  all  rare.  They  are  found  among 
people  who  are  normal  intellectually  and  who  cannot  be  con- 
sidered in  any  sense  psychopathic.  The  fundamental  reason 
for  the  symptom  may  usually  be  traced  to  just  such  an 
emotionally  accentuated  occurrence,  as  we  have  noted  in 
Mrs.  F.'s  case. 

With  the  advance  of  age  we  are  expected  to  tell  the  truth, 
and  the  average  normal  person  can  do  so  to  a  certain  extent. 
The  lies  then  serve  a  definite  purpose.  They  are  usually 
well  balanced  and  sometimes  even  very  ingenious  and  com- 
plicated. The  same  holds  true  in  the  abnormal  classes;  the 
greater  the  intellect,  the  more  difficult  it  is  to  detect  the  lie. 
Moral  idiots  and  superior  degenerates  often  make  such  good 
impressions  that  they  frequently  escape  detection  for  a  long 
time,  while  it  is  simple  enough  to  see  through  the  lies  of 
children,  of  most  mental  defectives  and  insane.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  lowest  type,  the  idiot,  is  usually  incapable 
of  telling  a  lie.  His  extreme  mental  poverty  allows  him  to 
follow  unhindered  all  his  simple  desires ;  he  has  not  enough 
brains  to  formulate  a  lie.  He  is  therefore  honesty  personified. 


204  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

That  telling  the  truth  among  normals  is  considered  as  some- 
thing verging  on  the  impossible  is  shown  by  the  fact  that 
one  of  the  greatest  attributes  of  the  Father  of  this  country- 
is  that  he  never  told  a  lie.  As  a  matter  of  fact  every  normal 
person  tells  a  lie  on  certain  occasions,  and  provided  certain 
conditions  are  fulfilled,  it  is  not  counted  against  him  even  if 
he  is  detected. 

To  be  called  a  liar,  a  person  must  not  only  show  a  frequent 
tendency  to  fabricate  but  must  also  evince  a  certain  weak- 
mindedness  in  its  execution.  Thus  a  well-bred,  apparently 
intelligent  woman  had  the  reputation  of  being  a  liar.  When 
I  met  her  for  the  first  time,  we  had  occasion  to  speak  of  a 
well-known  physician.  She  remarked  that  this  doctor  was 
much  devoted  to  her.  "He  kisses  me  whenever  I  leave  the 
office,"  she  went  on  to  declare.  Noticing  my  great  surprise, 
for  it  was  indeed  an  anomalous  condition  for  me  to  imagine, 
as  I  knew  the  man  intimately,  she  added,  "I  am  jlist  like  a 
daughter  to  him,"  I  am  sure  that  such  behavior  was  abso- 
lutely foreign  to  him.  This  woman  was  psychopathic  and 
was  well  known  as  a  habitual  liar. 

A  doctor  of  this  same  type  told  me  once  that  he  worked 
in  a  certain  clinic  in  Europe  with  which  I  was  very  well 
acquainted.  We  spoke  about  the  professor  who  was  at  the 
head  of  the  department,  and  he  remarked:  "Prof.  X.  thinks 
so  much  of  me  that  he  sent  me  the  proof  sheets  of  a  book 
he  just  wrote  and  asked  me  to  correct  them  and  make  any 
suggestions  I  deem  fit."  Every  lie,  like  every  dream,  must 
be  determined  by  something.  I  knew  the  determinant  of 
this :  the  professor  was  actually  to  have  given  out  a  new 
edition  of  the  book  referred  to.  "Do  you  mean  the  third 
edition  of  his  .  .  .?"  I  interposed.  "Why,  I  have  the  book 
home  already ;  it  just  came  to  me."  He  protested  vehemently 
that  this  could  not  be  and  turned  away  terribly  piqued.  Both 
these  individuals    (the   woman   mentioned   above   and   this 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  205 

doctor)  are  well-known  liars  among  their  friends  and  ac- 
quaintances. We  have  a  special  name  for  their  malady, — 
"pseudologia  phantastica."  People  of  this  type  have  con- 
stantly a  desire  to  fill  up  the  voidness  in  themselves. 

I  once  had  a  patient  who  upon  coming  late  would  declare 
apologetically :  "Doctor,  I  am  sorry  I  am  late ;  I  just  dined 
with  the  Duchess  of  Devonshire."  At  first  I  did  not  know 
whether  to  believe  him  or  not.  He  would  go  into  details 
about  the  Duchess,  inform  me  who  her  grandmother  was  and 
relate  many  other  intimate  facts.  At  another  time  he  said 
he  dined  with  the  Duke.  He  kept  that  up  for  a  week,  when 
I  discovered  that  there  was  not  an  iota  of  truth  in  what  he 
said.  He  had  delusions  of  grandeur  and  tried  in  this  way 
to  realize  his  abnormal  wishes.  He  thought  that  he  was  an 
illegitimate  child  and  that  he  came  from  the  nobility.  He 
had  made  a  study  of  English  nobility  and  was  thus  able  to 
play  his  part  pretty  well.  I  have  no  doubt  that  as  time  went 
on  he  began  to  believe  in  the  deception  himself. 

It  is  a  known  fact  that  eventually  ordinary  liars  believe 
their  lies  and  thus  realize  their  wishes.  A  few  years  ago  I 
often  heard  an  acquaintance  tell  of  his  interesting  experiences 
in  a  military  academy,  where  he  said  he  spent  a  few  years. 
I  was  very  much  surprised  to  find  years  later  when  I 
analyzed  him  that  he  never  saw  this  academy.  He  told  me 
that  at  the  age  of  ten  years  he  was  attracted  to  a  boy,  a  mili- 
tary student,  and  entertained  a  very  strong  wish  to  enter 
this  military  academy.  He  took  a  great  interest  in  military 
life,  and  read  much  about  this  school,  but  owing  to  financial 
difficulties,  his  ardent  wish  could  never  be  realized.  When 
he  applied  for  his  first  position,  he  boldly  stated  that  he 
attended  this  school,  and  as  the  lie  remained  unnoticed,  he 
stuck  to  it  for  years  and  finally  believed  that  he  actually 
studied  there  for  a  long  time. 

In  this  connection,  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  tendencies 


2o6  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

to  fabricate  can  be  produced  by  exogenous  factors.  I  am 
referring  to  Korsakoff's  psychosis,  a  condition  found  among 
alcoholics.  Here  the  poison  having  destroyed  life-long  inhi- 
bitions, the  patients  find  it  very  easy  to  tell  the  most  phantastic 
and  embellished  adventures.  They  never  become  embarrassed 
when  brought  to  bay,  because  their  mental  processes  are 
paralyzed.  Ask  such  a  patient,  who  is  confined  to  bed,  what 
he  did  in  the  morning  and  he  replies  most  cheerfully :  "I  have 
been  out  and  walked  down  on  Broadway  and  went  into  a 

saloon  on  23rd  Street,  met  Mr  ,  etc."     And  all  the 

time  he  was  in  bed,  but  he  makes  the  story  so  specific  that 
one  who  does  not  know,  finds  it  difficult  not  to  believe  him. 
All  we  have  to  do  is  to  give  him  the  slightest  suggestion  and 
he  has  a  long  story  ready.  Ask  him  for  some  money,  and 
he  will  at  once  begin  to  search  for  his  trousers,  though  he 
really  has  not  a  cent  that  he  can  call  his  own.  There  are 
no  inhibitions  whatever,  everything  runs  smoothly;  it  is  a 
state  of  euphoria.  Indeed,  we  may  say  weak-mindedness 
due  to  any  cause  permits  ambitions  to  run  riot,  and  as  the 
individual  finds  it  impossible  to  realize  them,  he  makes  believe 
to  his  fellow-being  that  he  has  actually  accomplished  all  his 
mighty  deeds.  In  this  respect,  he  resembles  the  prolific 
dreamer  who  has  many  wishes  to  fulfill,  but  whereas  the 
latter  by  virtue  of  ethical  inhibitions  can  only  realize  his 
desires  in  sleep,  the  psychopathic  liar,  who  has  never  fully 
developed  mental  inhibitions,  puts  his  wishes  in  operation  in 
the  waking  state. 

Some  lies  manifest  themselves  in  very  peculiar  ways. 
Thus,  I  knew  a  patient,  a  young  woman,  who  suddenly 
stopped  urinating.  No  amount  of  urging  on  the  part  of 
the  physicians  in  the  sanitarium  where  she  was  treated  could 
cause  her  to  attend  to  this  bodily  function.  Sometimes  she 
maintained  that  she  could  not  attend  to  these  wants,  other 
times  that  she  simply  felt  no  need  for  them.     And,  strange 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  207 

to  say,  while  the  doctors  were  seriously  concerned  over  her 
ailment  she  secretly  appropriated  towels  and  used  them  as 
receptacles  for  her  excretions,  which  she  then  threw  out  of 
the  window.  Here  the  lie  was  determined  by  a  reversion 
to  infantile  eroticisms  manifesting  themselves  in  the  desire 
to  solicit  the  doctor's  attention  to  the  genitals.  This  case 
recalls  Prof.  Virchow's  case  of  Louise  Lateau,  who  refused 
to  take  food  because  she  maintained  that  she  was  a  saint  and 
needed  no  nourishment.  Virchow  ascertained  that  she  had 
regular  movements  of  the  bowels  and  decided  that  she  was 
secredy  taking  nourishment.  For,  he  argued,  and  surely 
with  good  reason,  that  though  the  Lord  created  the  world  out 
of  nothing,  no  mortal  could  produce  matter  out  of  nothing. 
Those  of  you  who  are  interested  in  cases  of  this  kind,  will 
find  much  interesting  material  in  the  police  records.  They 
make  up  the  classes  of  international  swindlers,  charlatans, 
malingerers,  etc. 

The  liar  shows  a  definite  relation  to  the  born  criminal  from 
whom  he  differs  only  in  degree.  The  latter  being  usually 
lower  in  the  mental  scale  does  not  even  have  to  lie ;  he  sees 
something  that  he  wants  and  straightway  sets  out  to  get  it. 
And  that  is  why,  as  we  have  pointed  out  previously,  the 
criminal  dreams  considerably  less  than  the  average  normal 
person :  he  actually  realizes  many  more  of  his  wishes  than 
his  normal  brother. 

The  liar  is  also  related  to  the  poet,  who  may  be  called  an 
artificial  dreamer  or  a  convention  fabricator.  Prof.  Prescott 
in  his  interesting  study  of  Poetry  and  Dreams  expresses 
himself  as  follows  on  the  origin  of  poetry:  "It  represents 
the  fulfillment  of  our  ungratified  wishes  or  desires."  The 
same  mechanism  is  found  in  habitual  liars,  and  to  a  lesser 
degree,  in  every  normal  person.  What  is  the  distinction 
between  them?  The  normal  dissatisfied  person  contents 
himself  with  fancy  formation  which  he  keeps  to  himself  very 


2o8  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

carefully.  He  does  not  wish  to  reveal  his  secret  desires 
because  he  is  ashamed  to  do  so  and,  what  is  more,  he  knows 
that  we  will  not  be  interested  in  them.  The  liar  has  never 
outgrown  his  infancy,  so  that  even  as  an  adult  his  fancies, 
his  wishes  are  of  a  childish  nature;  he  is  unable  to  adapt 
himself  to  reality,  so  that  he  constructs  his  world  on  the 
infantile  foundation.  His  fancies  are  therefore  character- 
ized throughout  by  extreme  egotism.  He  is  the  hero  of 
every  adventure,  the  "sine  qua  non"  in  every  situation.  That 
is  why  he  repels  us,  for  we  do  not  like  to  see  another  indi- 
vidual behave  so  ail-importantly.  The  poet  or  writer  over- 
comes these  difficulties  by  toning  down  the  egotistic  character 
of  his  fancies.  He  conceals  them  under  the  hero,  and  that 
is  why  his  productions  give  us  pure  aesthetic  pleasure.  We 
are  fascinated  by  the  situation  because  it  offers  us  the  op- 
portunity to  put  ourselves  into  the  hero's  place,  and  our 
pleasure  is  thus  derived  from  deep  psychic  sources.  In 
other  words,  the  poet  offers  us  an  enticing  premium  or  a 
forepleasure,  whereby  we  may  release  some  of  our  own 
mental  and  emotional  tension.  But  the  liar,  like  the  child, 
wants  everything  and  obtains  pleasure  solely  in  reciting  to 
others  his  egotistic  adventures. 

I  now  propose  to  take  up  a  class  of  dreams  known  as 
typical  dreams.  We  classify  them  under  that  heading  because 
Typical  there  is  hardly  a  person  who  does  not  have  them 
Dreams  ^t  some  time  of  his  life.  One  of  the  most  com- 
mon of  the  typical  dreams  is  the  dream  of  being  naked.  As 
Charles  Dickens  has  so  happily  put  it,  it  is  a  dream  that 
everybody  has,  "from  Queen  Elizabeth  to  her  most  humble 
gaoler."  He  describes  it  quite  characteristically :  we  find 
ourselves  naked  in  a  crowd ;  though  no  one  seems  to  notice 
us  or  pay  us  the  slightest  attention,  we  ourselves  are  greatly 
embarrassed.     The  dream  is  sometimes  also  modified.     In- 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  209 

stead  of  being  naked,  the  dreamer  is  not  dressed  as  he  should 
be.  With  all  the  others  in  evening  clothes  at  a  ball,  for  in- 
stance, he  may  find  himself  in  every-day  attire ;  or  if  he  is 
in  the  army,  he  may  find  himself  dressed  contrary  to  the 
regulations.  Such  dreams  go  back  to  the  earliest  period  of 
childhood,  when  the  child  is  naked  and  experiences  no  feeling 
of  shame.  Prof.  Freud  declares  that  this  age  of  childhood 
in  which  the  sense  of  shame  is  not  present  seems  to  our  later 
recollections  a  paradise,  and  the  idea  of  paradise  itself  is 
nothing  but  a  composite  phantasy  from  the  childhood  of  the 
individual.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  in  paradise  human 
being  are  naked  and  are  not  at  all  ashamed.  When  the  child 
grows  older,  the  sense  of  shame  and  fear  is  aroused;  it  is 
then  that  sexual  life  and  cultural  development  begin.  The 
problem  of  nakedness  is  not  only  found  in  the  story  of  Adam 
and  Eve,  but  is  quite  a  dominant  theme  in  fairy  tales.  You 
may  all  recall  Andersen's  fascinating  story  of  the  two  rogues 
who  wove  that  wonderful  cloak  for  the  king  that  only  those 
could  see  who  were  truly  fit  for  their  positions.  You  re- 
member that  neither  the  king  nor  his  court  nor  the  populace 
would  admit  that  nothing  was  seen ;  every  one  was  afraid 
to  confess  the  truth  lest  he  thus  betray  his  unfitness  for  his 
particular  position,  and  admired  the  garment  immensely.  It 
remained  for  a  little  child  to  disclose  openly  that  the  king 
was  really  naked  and  thus  put  an  end  to  the  ruse.  Observe 
how  the  unconscious,  with  which  we  may  identify  the  child, 
always  tells  the  truth. 

What  do  these  dreams  of  nakedness  represent?  Accord- 
ing to  Prof.  Freud  they  are  exhibition  dreams.  We  must 
bear  in  mind  that  despite  the  fact  that  we  are  perfectly 
reconciled  to  our  ethical  criteria,  we  unconsciously  live 
through  many  of  the  infantile  states.  We  still  like  to  walk 
about  naked  as  we  did  when  we  were  children.  There  is 
no  greater  pleasure  that  you  can  give  to  children  than  to 


2IO  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

allow  them  to  walk  about  naked;  it  is  quite  common  for 
travelers  to  see  children  in  certain  parts  of  Europe  exhibit 
themselves.  Indeed,  I  have  no  doubt  that  Andersen's  story 
itself  is  a  reminiscence  of  the  author's  own  exhibitionism,  of 
his  own  unconscious  craving  to  appear  naked.  We  see  this 
reversion  to  infantile  feelings  even  in  the  waking  state.  As 
you  may  know,  the  whole  art  of  dressmaking  always  aims 
at  one  thing, — discovering  some  new  way  of  displaying  the 
woman's  body,  of  rendering  prominent  those  parts  of  the 
body  which  attract  men.  The  decollete  and  the  evening 
dresses  we  see  at  the  opera  and  at  the  dinner  are  markedly 
exhibitionistic  despite  the  fact  that  they  are  worn  by  highly 
respectable  ladies.  It  is  also  a  matter  of  common  observation 
that  the  woman  who  is  not  very  proud  of  her  physical  make- 
up is  by  no  means  eager  to  display  it. 

The  next  typical  dream  is  the  dream  of  the  death  of  rela- 
tives. I  feel  that  everybody  has  had  dreams  of  this  nature. 
The  dreamer  is  usually  very  much  affected  by  the  death  and 
reacts  to  it  in  the  dream  just  as  deeply  as  in  the  waking  state. 
Of  course,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  our  dreams  are  wish 
realizations  a  great  many  will  be  shocked  and  wonder  why 
you  should  wish  your  relatives  to  die.  Such  dreams  usually 
go  back  to  very  early  childhood  when  the  conception  of 
death  held  no  terror  to  the  child,  when  death  merely  involved 
absence.  A  little  child  cannot  conceive  the  real  significance 
of  the  fact;  all  that  he  understands  is  that  the  father  is  just 
away  on  his  vacation  perhaps,  or  on  a  trip.  He  does  not  have 
the  same  reaction  to  death  that  we  observe  in  the  adult.  The 
child  often  welcomes  this  protracted  absence,  for  he  is  thus 
freed  from  the  restraint  that  his  father  imposed  upon  him. 

In  the  same  way  it  may  seem  strange  to  dream  of  the 
death  of  one's  sister  in  view  of  our  fundamental  thesis  that 
the  dream  represents  essentially  a  hidden  wish.  But  we  find 
that  if  there  are  two  sisters  in  the  home  the  older  child  will 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  2ii 

usually  impose  her  will  upon  the  younger  one.  The  younger 
child  is  helpless,  but  in  the  absence  of  her  sister  she  is  able 
to  enjoy  a  degree  of  freedom  and  independence  that  she 
could  not  have  before.  In  one  particular  case  of  two  married 
sisters,  for  instance,  the  younger  one  dreamed  that  her  sister 
was  dead  and  experienced  all  the  emotions  that  go  with 
mourning.  Upon  analysis  it  was  found  that  her  dream  went 
back  to  her  childhood  when  she  was  dominated  by  her  sister. 
She  did  not  wish  so  much  in  the  dream  that  the  sister  were 
dead  in  the  real  sense  of  the  word,  but  that  she  were  away. 
This  is  the  basic  significance  of  all  dreams  of  this  type ;  we 
are  dealing  here  with  a  situation  representing  an  infantile 
wish. 

There  are  a  number  of  dreams,  however,  describing  the 
death  of  a  relative  in  which  we  find  no  sadness,  no  grief, 
no  affective  elements  whatsoever.  We  have  here  an  alto- 
gether different  situation.  Such  dreams  do  not  denote  death 
at  all.  I  reported,  for  example,  the  case  of  a  man  who 
related  to  me  how  he  dreamed  that  he  saw  his  brother  with 
his  head  cut  open  and  was  by  no  means  affected  by  the 
terrible  sight;  it  seemed  quite  natural  to  him  to  see  his 
brother  in  that  condition.  It  is  noteworthy  that  he  came 
to  me  some  time  before  the  dream  and  asked  me  whether  I 
thought  there  was  any  substance  in  what  he  read  in  the 
newspapers  about  trephining  a  defective  boy's  head  to  make 
him  well.  I  assured  him  that  that  was  all  nonsense  and 
impossible.  His  brother  was  quite  a  serious  problem  to  him 
and  the  dream,  far  from  expressing  the  wish  that  his  brother 
were  dead,  expressed  his  ardent  desire  that  he  be  cured. 

I  would  have  you  note  also  a  type  of  dream  in  which  the 
sister  dreams  of  the  death  of  her  brother.  The  relations 
between  brother  and  sister  are  not  at  all  as  amicable  and 
harmonious  as  we  generally  suppose.  Our  ethical  training 
enjoins  upon  us  to  live  harmoniously  and  we  realize  that 


212  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

we  ought  to  be  good  and  just  to  our  sisters  and  brothers. 
But  frankly,  I  have  never  observed  more  bitter  enmities 
than  between  brothers  and  sisters.  They  know  how  to  hate 
because  they  know  also  how  to  love.  I  have  analyzed  many 
a  dream  which,  shocking  though  it  was  to  the  moral  principle 
of  the  dreamer,  contained  nevertheless  the  remnants  of  this 
early  hatred  between  brother  and  sister.  Thus  an  intelligent 
cultured  woman  dreamed  that  her  brother  was  dead.  The 
situation  was  that  her  mother  had  left  some  money  which 
her  brother  was  planning  to  appropriate  despite  the  fact  that 
she  needed  it  far  more  urgently  than  he.  But  I  would  have 
you  mark  very  carefully  that  in  reality  this  woman  would 
rather  do  without  the  money  than  have  her  brother  die.  In 
the  unconscious,  however,  we  are  living  through  our  child- 
hood, we  are  primitive  and  absolutely  egocentric,  we  are 
concerned  with  problems  solely  as  they  affect  us.  In  the 
unconscious  our  wishes  balk  at  nothing:  we  are  ready  to 
dispatch  through  death  or  any  other  means  any  person  who 
stands  in  our  way. 

Very  often,  too,  our  secret  desires  may  be  unconsciously 
realized  even  in  the  waking  state.  I  have  reported  the  case 
of  a  noted  physician  in  New  York  who  was  hurriedly  called 
away  from  his  home  to  the  bedside  of  his  sick,  old  uncle. 
When  he  came  he  did  not  take  over  the  charge  of  the  case, 
because  everything  possible  was  done  for  the  patient  by  his 
own  family  physicians.  All  hope  for  the  patient's  recovery 
was  abandoned  and  his  death  was  expected  every  day.  But 
despite  the  many  complications,  the  patient  held  on  to  life 
tenaciously  and  days  passed  without  any  marked  apparent 
change.  His  nephew  became  quite  anxious  to  return  to 
New  York  as  soon  as  possible,  as  there  was  a  very  busy 
practice  awaiting  him,  and  what  was  more,  there  was  illness 
in  his  own  family.  One  evening  the  uncle  became  very  ill, 
and  as  the  attending  physicians  were  away,  he  gave  him  a 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  213 

hypodermic  to  stimulate  his  heart.  Very  shortly  the  old  man 
died.  When  he  later  looked  at  the  vial  from  which  he  took 
the  drug,  he  found,  to  his  great  consternation,  that  instead 
of  giving  him  strychnin,  he  gave  him  hyoscine,  a  drug  that 
has  exactly  the  opposite  action  of  strychnin.  In  other 
words,  he  actually  killed  the  patient.  Consciously,  of  course, 
he  did  not  wish  to  kill  him,  and  in  his  terrible  mortification, 
he  consoled  himself  in  the  thought  that  he  would  have  died 
soon  anyway.  The  physician  unconsciously  hastened  the 
man's  death  in  his  great  eagerness  to  return  to  his  home.  He 
informed  me  of  this,  years  after  it  happened:  he  assured  me 
that  he  revealed  the  fact  to  no  one;  he  merely  wished  to 
corroborate  what  I  said  in  one  of  my  psychoanalytic  papers. 
I  learnt  also,  that  when  a  boy,  he  had  many  dreams  of  the 
death  of  this  very  uncle,  and  indeed  very  often  actually 
wished  that  the  man  were  dead.  The  boy's  father  died  when 
the  child  was  very  young,  and  the  uncle  was  unusually  severe 
with  him.  Though  he  became  more  and  more  attached  to 
him  as  he  grew  older,  it  would  seem  that  the  coup  de  grace 
did  not  lack  hostile  motivation. 

In  the  unconscious,  then,  our  own  immediate  welfare  takes 
precedence  over  every  other  consideration :  father,  brother, 
sister,  and  relative  are  only  of  minor  importance.  Thus  an 
important  question  to  ask  yourself  in  dream  analysis  is  "cui 
bono,"  to  whose  advantage  is  the  underlying  situation  in  the 
dream?  If  it  is  to  the  advantage  of  the  dreamer,  or  in  other 
words,  if  it  falls  in  line  with  his  secret  inner  demands  and 
strivings,  then  the  dream  has  its  significance  only  in  terms  of 
that  situation  and  no  other,  for  the  dream  always  deals  with 
problems  of  the  most  intimate  personal  character.  The 
dream  is  always  egocentric. 

There  is  another  typical  dream  dealing  with  the  death  of 
the  father,  that  we  find  particularly  among  young  sons.  We 
have  to  consider  here  the  primitive  state  of  the  human  being. 


214  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

There  is  always  a  rivalry  between  father  and  son  for  the 
love  of  the  mother,  and  this,  despite  the  fact  that  the  father 
may  love  his  boy  very  dearly.  The  son  has  learned  that  he 
receives  much  more  attention  and  love  from  his  mother,  and 
is  treated  more  leniently  in  the  father's  absence.  In  this  type 
of  dream,  therefore,  we  see  the  desire  on  the  part  of  the 
child  to  get  rid  of  his  father.  It  is  really  surprising  to  note 
how  many  boys  dream  openly  as  well  as  disguisedly  of  the 
death  of  their  father.  These  dreams  are  even  more  common 
than  those  dealing  with  the  death  of  the  teacher,  for  the 
latter  plays  a  smaller  part  in  the  child's  psychic  life  than  the 
father.  For  one  thing  the  teacher  comes  into  his  life  at  a 
later  period  and  as  he  is  not  surrounded  with  the  halo  of 
parental  sanctity,  hostile  feelings  against  the  teacher  are 
generally  quite  conscious. 

We  call  such  dreams  of  the  death  of  the  father  CEdipus 
dreams,  because,  according  to  Prof.  Freud,  to  whom  we  are 
indebted  for  the  name,  they  bring  to  light  an  essentially 
human  situation  that  has  found  most  fatting  expression  in 
Sophocles'  noted  tragedy  of  "Qidipus  Rex."  You  remember 
the  story: 

Laius,  the  King  of  Thebes,  married  Jocasta.  After  years 
of  childless  marriage,  Laius  visited  the  Delphian  Apollo  and 
prayed  for  a  child.  The  answer  of  the  god  was  as  follows: 
"Your  prayer  has  been  heard  and  a  son  will  be  given  to  you, 
but  you  will  die  at  his  hand,  for  Zeus  decided  to  fulfill  the 
curse  of  Polybos,  whose  son  you  have  once  kidnaped."  In 
spite  of  the  warning  the  son  was  born,  but  remembering  the 
oracle,  the  child's  feet  were  pierced  and  tied,  and  he  was 
delivered  to  a  faithful  servant  to  be  exposed.  The  latter, 
however,  gave  the  child  to  a  Corinthian  shepherd  who  took 
it  to  his  master,  the  King  of  Corinth,  who,  being  childless, 
adopted  it  and  called  it  CEdipus,  meaning  swollen  feet. 
When  the  boy  grew  up  into  manhood  he  became  uncertain 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  215 

of  his  own  origin,  and  consulting  the  oracle,  received  the 
following  message :  "Do  not  return  home  for  thou  art  des- 
tined to  kill  thy  father  and  marry  thy  mother."  In  order 
to  avoid  the  fulfillment  of  this  prophecy  CEdipus  at  once 
left  Corinth  and  accidentally  wandered  toward  Thebes.  On 
the  way  he  met  King  Laius  and  in  a  sudden  altercation  with 
him  struck  him  dead.  He  then  came  to  the  gates  of  Thebes, 
where  he  solved  the  riddle  of  the  Sphinx  who  barred  his 
way.  As  a  reward  for  ridding  Thebes  of  this  scourge  he 
was  elected  king  and  presented  with  the  hand  of  the  widowed 
queen,  Jocasta.  He  reigned  in  peace  for  many  years  and 
begot  two  sons  and  two  daughters  with  his  unknown  mother, 
until  a  plague  broke  out  which  caused  the  Thebans  to  consult 
the  oracle.  The  messenger  returned  with  the  advice  that  the 
plague  would  cease  as  soon  as  the  murderer  of  King  Laius 
would  be  driven  from  the  country.  Sophocles  then  develops 
the  play  in  a  psychoanal>1:ic  manner  until  the  true  relations 
are  discovered,  namely,  that  (Edipus  killed  his  own  father 
and  married  his  own  mother.  The  tragedy  ends  by  QEdipus 
blinding  himself  and  wandering  away  into  voluntary  exile. 

According  to  Prof.  Freud  this  noted  Greek  tragedy  depicts 
a  typical  situation  found  in  the  psychic  life  of  every  indi- 
vidual, that  undoubtedly  Sophocles  wrote  the  play  as  a 
reaction  to  his  own  feelings  towards  his  father  and  his 
attachment  to  his  mother.  Indeed,  Freud  has  pointed  out 
that  there  are  many  passages  in  the  play  which  very  definitely 
demonstrate  that  it  was  based  upon  dream  material.  We 
find,  for  instance,  that  when  CEdipus  was  so  profoundly 
mortified  by  the  true  facts  of  the  tragedy,  his  mother  Jocasta 
consoles  him  in  one  passage  thus :  "Do  not  worry  over  this, 
because  many  a  man  has  found  himself  in  his  dreams  the 
partner  of  his  mother's  bed,  but  those  go  through  life  best 
who  take  those  things  as  trifles."    It  would  seem  then,  that 


2i6  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

the  author  had  grasped  the  full  psychological  import  of  what 
appears  to  be  a  universal  situation. 

Qldipus  dreams  or  dreams  involving  sexual  relations  with 
one's  immediate  family  are  very  common.  It  is  noteworthy 
that  when  I  first  wrote  a  paper  on  the  subject  I  had  col- 
lected probably  only  forty  or  fifty  dreams  of  this  type.  But 
upon  its  publication  I  began  to  receive  numerous  letters  from 
various  people,  all  of  whom  had  the  same  story  to  relate: 
"I  was  so  shocked  by  these  dreams, — I  thought  I  was  the 
only  one  to  have  them.  But  I  am  relieved  to  know  that  they 
are  quite  common."  That  was  the  general  tenor  of  the  com- 
munications. We  may  say,  then,  that  it  is  everybody's  fate, 
as  it  were,  to  be  a  rival  of  his  own  father  and  have  his  first 
love  directed  towards  his  own  mother.  Such  a  situation  has 
a  profound  influence  upon  the  individual's  whole  life.  We 
shall  meet  it  again  when  we  discuss  the  subject  of  the  only 
child.  It  is  absolutely  necessary  to  understand  it  in  order 
to  form  the  proper  adjustment  to  life. 

All  such  dreams  are  in  the  final  analysis  a  reaction  to  the 
tyrannical  part  played  by  the  father  in  the  household.  The 
tyranny  of  father  over  son  is  a  subject  which  stands  out 
prominently  in  folklore  and  mythology;  the  struggle  be- 
tween the  Greek  gods  is  essentially  a  conflict  between  father 
and  son.  It  is  also  quite  a  common  theme  in  literature.  I 
now  recall,  for  instance,  that  in  one  year  there  were  no  less 
than  five  plays  running  in  New  York  which  dealt  with  the 
rivalry  between  father  and  son.  In  fact  the  CEdipus  trend 
is  more  common  in  literature  than  is  generally  supposed.  I 
have  recentiy  read  an  article  by  a  well-known  playreader  in 
New  York  in  which  the  writer  stated  that  he  could  not 
understand  why  authors  should  deal  so  much  with  topics  of 
the  QEdipus  character.  He  went  on  to  assert  that  many 
excellent  plays  had  to  be  rejected  because  the  theme  is  too 
delicate;  the  love  between  mother  and  son  or  sister  and 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  217 

brother  is  too  grossly  evident.  You  see  the  sister  is  usually 
a  substitute  for  the  mother. 

We  shall  learn  later,  that  when  the  normal  sexual  develop- 
ment is  retarded  through  an  over-indulgence  in  love  for  the 
son  on  the  part  of  the  mother,  a  fixation  on  the  mother  may 
result.  When  we  say  that  the  man  is  fixed  on  the  mother  or 
the  woman  on  the  father,  we  do  not  mean  the  parents  as  they 
look  to-day  but  as  they  appeared  when  the  children  were 
still  infants.  At  that  early  age  of  the  child's  life  the  mother 
and  father  looked  different  and  also  behaved  differently.  The 
influence  of  such  a  fixation  upon  the  parent  is  only  too  ap- 
parent in  the  later  selection  of  the  adult.  Given  a  number 
of  women  to  choose  from,  a  man  will  invariably  select  the 
woman  that  has  been  more  or  less  selected  for  him  in  the 
unconscious.  That  is  to  say,  if  everything  is  normal  he  will 
be  guided  from  the  very  outset  by  the  image  of  his  own 
mother.  If  conditions  are  not  normal,  however,  his  selec- 
tion will  be  controlled  by  the  reaction  formed  against  it. 

Consider,  for  instance,  the  case  of  Mr.  B.,  who  informed 
me  that  as  far  as  he  could  remember  he  was  always  attracted 
to  women  of  the  Grecian  type,  tall,  well  formed  and  well 
developed.  And  though  he  married  a  woman  of  that  type,  he 
could  not  understand  why  his  grand  passion  was  for  a  woman 
of  the  opposite  type,  that  is  to  say,  more  like  the  French  or 
the  petite  type.  When  we  investigate  his  life  we  find  that 
his  mother  was  of  French  descent,  of  the  French  type.  The 
question  naturally  suggests  itself,  why  should  he  have  been 
drawn  to  women  of  the  opposite  type  or,  in  other  words,  to 
women  so  radically  different  from  the  mother  image  ?  Upon 
first  thought  we  might  say  that  such  a  condition  is  only  proof 
of  nature's  far-sightedness  in  trying  to  preserve  the  proper 
balance,  for  if  like  were  to  attract  like  we  would  have  on 
the  one  hand,  one  might  say,  a  race  of  giants,  and  on  the 
other,  a  race  of  pigmies.     But  tlie  explanation  is  not  so 


2i8  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

simple.  In  speaking  to  Mr.  B.  about  his  mother,  he  recalled 
that  he  never  forgave  his  father  for  actually  poking  fun  at 
his  mother  on  two  different  occasions  because  of  her  small 
stature,  and  how  deeply  touched  he  felt  at  some  of  the  dis- 
paraging remarks  directed  at  her  on  that  very  account  by 
various  other  people.  It  is  not  difficult  to  see  what  happened 
here.  Consciously  Mr.  B  was  always  trying  to  tear  himself 
away  from  that  particular  short-coming  of  his  mother  by 
seeking  tall  women.  But  in  the  unconscious  he  gravitated 
toward  the  mother  image,  and  accordingly  experienced  his 
grand  passion  only  when  he  met  the  type  of  woman  that 
approached  most  closely  her  type.  As  you  see,  then,  we 
are  very  often  negatively  influenced  by  these  early  attractions. 
In  normal  cases  the  individual  always  gravitates  toward  the 
parent  image,  and  it  is  for  this  reason  that  husband  and  wife 
resemble  each  other's  parents.  I  have  seen  numerous  cases 
where  the  wife  resembled  the  husband's  mother  or  sister  to 
such  an  unusual  degree  that  one  could  hardly  tell  the 
difference  between  the  two.  Thus  a  New  York  boy  upon  the 
death  of  his  father  left  his  home  and  went  to  California, 
where  he  was  brought  up  by  an  uncle.  When  he  married 
he  came  east  with  his  wife  on  his  honeymoon,  and  the  mo- 
ment his  mother  saw  her  she  declared  that  the  latter  looked 
just  like  his  younger  sister  Jane.  In  fact,  she  insisted  that 
she  saw  the  marked  resemblance  from  the  photograph  her 
son  had  sent  her,  but  she  was  quite  sure  of  it  now.  He 
walked  with  his  wife  on  the  avenue  one  day  and  his  sister's 
classmate,  who  did  not  live  in  New  York,  ran  up  to  her  and 
kissed  her  warmly,  thinking  that  she  was  her  friend  Jane. 
People  mistook  his  wife  for  his  sister  so  frequently  that  he 
finally  began  to  become  aware  of  the  resemblance  himself. 
I  have  five  photographs,  three  of  his  wife  and  two  of  his 
sister,  pasted  on  a  cardboard  and  I  have  shown  them  to 
quite  a  number  of  people,  some  of  whom  are  artists,  and 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  219 

there  was  only  one  man  who  could  tell  the  difiference  be- 
tween the  two  women.  This  he  did  by  resorting  to  such 
devices  as  measuring  the  angle  of  the  chin  and  so  on.  It 
was  absolutely  impossible  for  the  average  observer  to  dis- 
tinguish between  the  two  women.  The  problem  of  resem- 
blance has  been  noted  by  many  students  who  were  not  at  all 
working  psychologically  in  our  sense.  Pearson,  an  English- 
man, for  instance,  has  investigated  this  subject  on  a  physical 
basis,  studying  the  color  of  the  hair,  stature,  color  of  the 
eyes,  etc.,  and  formulated  the  conclusion  that  judging  from 
physical  resemblances  married  people  look  more  like  first 
cousins  than  strangers. 

It  is  because  the  artist  also  actually  gravitates  towards 
some  more  or  less  definite  image  that  we  have  the  Madonna 
cult.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  various  studies  of  the 
virgin  Mary  are  all  the  products  of  artists  who  did  not  live 
at  the  time  of  the  Madonna.  None  of  them  really  knew 
how  she  actually  looked,  and  indeed  if  she  resembled  any 
type  of  woman  at  all,  she  must  have  resembled  the  Jewish 
woman.  It  is  noteworthy  that  a  German  artist  has  recently 
actually  painted  a  Madonna  of  the  Jewish  type.  Careful 
study  shows  that  the  Madonnas  that  we  see  everywhere  are 
really  nothing  but  idealized  images  of  the  artist's  own  mother. 
Thus  Madonnas  painted  by  Italian  artists  resemble  the 
Italian  woman,  those  by  Spaniards  the  Spanish  woman,  and 
so  on.  Study  for  a  moment  Leonardo  Da  Vinci's  St.  Anna 
and  the  Child  and  you  will  at  once  observe  how  much  they 
resemble  his  own  Mona  Lisa;  they  all  seem  to  have  that 
peculiar  Leonardesque  quality,  that  enigmatic  smile  that  we 
hear  so  much  about.  In  the  same  way  also  his  John  the 
Baptist  bears  a  marked  resemblance  to  his  Mona  Lisa  and 
it  is  quite  common  to  mistake  him  for  a  young  woman.  We 
may  say  that  in  all  these  paintings  the  artist  has  unconsciously 
reproduced  the  image  of  his  own  mother.     They  are  all 


220  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

reproductions  of  the  artist's  ideal  image  of  his  mother.  I 
have  ample  corroboration  of  this  in  the  artistic  productions 
of  modern  artists  whose  lives  I  know  intimately,  but  unfor- 
tunately material  of  this  character  cannot  be  divulged  at 
present. 


CHAPTER  IX 
TYPES  OF  DREAMS  {Continued) 

As  there  has  been  considerable  objection  to  dreams  of  the 
death  of  parents,  it  may  be  wise  to  analyze  with  you  a  dream 
of  this  type  given  to  me  by  a  patient.  It  will  show  you  very 
definitely  how  even  later  in  life  one  dreams  of  the  death  of 
parents,  though,  of  course,  by  no  means  openly  as  in  child- 
hood, but  in  a  hidden,  veiled  way.  Mrs.  B.  dreamed  that 
two  old  people,  a  man  zvho  seemed  to  he  her  father  only 
that  he  looked  much  older,  and  a  woman  who  seemed  to  he 
his  wife  and  resembled  her  grandmother,  or,  more  definitely, 
her  mother's  mother,  were  starting  for  a  walk.  "I  zvas  ill, 
at  least  in  hed,  so  I  told  the  people  around  me  to  follow  them. 
No  one  wanted  to,  so  I  got  tip  and  followed  them.  They 
zvalked  through  the  dining  room,  passed  a  pantry,  and  then 
came  to  another  pantry  which  was  open.  As  the  old  wommt 
seemed  inistcady  on  her  feet,  I  called  to  the  man  to  hold  her 
hack;  just  then  he  opened  the  door  and  pushed  her  down 
and  she  was  killed,  as  he  zvished.  He  turned  his  head,  saw 
that  I  was  there  and  reaUaed  that  I  noticed  everything.  I 
wrote  down  the  dream  and  went  back  to  bed  and  dreamed  the 
same  dream  over  again,  only  this  time  I  stepped  back  so  that 
the  old  man  did  not  see  that  I  saw  him  commit  the  murder." 

Mrs.  B.,  a  woman  of  thirty,  suffered  from  a  pro- 
found psychoneurosis.  Her  father  and  mother  had  been 
living  apart  for  over  twenty  years  and  were  total  strangers 
to  each  other,  and  this,  despite  the  fact  that  they  both  lived 
under  the  same  roof.    This  was  as  well  known  to  outsiders 


222  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

as  to  the  children  themselves,  but  somehow  the  parents  did 
not  care  to  separate.     What  was  more,  the  children  knew 
that  the  father  had  a  mistress  who  was  his  former  stenog- 
rapher; their  sympathies  were  entirely  with  him,  for,  from 
their  descriptions,  the  mother  was  apparently  a  paranoiac. 
They   considered   her  insane  and    felt  that   she   made   the 
father's  life  miserable.     Mrs.  B.  even  claimed  that  she  had 
no  objection  to  her  father's  amour  with  the  stenographer. 
She  knew  the  young  woman  personally  and  held  her  in  high 
regard.     But  she  always  entertained  a  more  or  less  deep- 
seated  dislike  for  her,  for  she  realized  that  she  was  being 
deprived  by  her  of  a  good  deal  of  the  father'  affection,  she 
saw  in  her  a  rival  of  his  love.     She  experienced  what  we 
designate  in  our  work  the  ambivalent  feeling,  a  feeling  of 
contrast:  the  individual  loves  and  hates,  as  it  were,  at  the 
same  time.     Love  and  hate  go  hand  in  hand.     When  one 
loves  deeply  the  more  or  less  disagreeable  characteristics  of 
the  person  will  be    completely  concealed  under  the  love.    A 
man  who  is  in  love  will  see  nothing  of  that  which  other 
persons  consider  a  marked  blemish  in  his  inamorata.     This 
ambivalency  of  feeling  is  a  well-known  mechanism  and  we 
should  try  to  understand  it.    In  ordinary  life,  of  course,  we 
can  usually  separate  the  two  feelings :  "He  is  a  good  teacher, 
but  he  knows  so  little  about  life,"  you  may  say  about  your 
teacher.    "He  is  a  very  fine  man,  but  lacks  character  as  far 
as  business  is  concerned,"  you  may  think  to  yourself  about 
your  employer.     But  when  it  concerns  one  whom  we  love 
or  are  supposed  to  love,  we  have  to  hide  the  disagreeable 
phase  of  his  character.    "He  is  a  fine  father,  but  a  despic- 
able man,"  one  cannot  say  about  his  father.    A  mother  would 
never  observe:  "My  daughter  is  very  accomplished,  but  not 
quite  well  behaved  morally."    We  do  not  see  the  shortcom- 
ings of  those  we  love  or  are  supposed  to  love.     But  uncon- 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  223 

sciously  we  are  well  aware  of  them;  though  we  hide  them 
they  keep  on  growing  luxuriously  in  the  unconscious. 

Mrs.  B.  was  married  to  a  man  whom  she  did  not  wish 
to  marry  originally.  She  had  been  engaged  to  him  for  a 
number  of  years,  but  somehow  it  was  one  of  those  chronic 
engagements.  Like  a  chronic  wound, — a  chronic  engage- 
ment never  works  well.  Usually  the  long-engaged  fiancee 
or  her  lover  marries  some  one  else  suddenly,  or  if  they  do 
marry  eventually,  they  are  never  happy.  It  does  not  at  all 
bespeak  happiness  in  matrimony  when  the  fiancee  confidently 
declares:  "I  have  known  him  ever  so  long."  We  must  re- 
member that  the  love  impulse  is  normally  acute  and  ve- 
hement and  sees  things  through  at  all  costs.  Anything 
chronic,  even  in  love,  is  not  good.  It  is  not  surprising,  then, 
that  when  Mrs.  B.  finally  did  marry  the  man,  she  found  she 
could  not  get  along  with  him.  She  would  live  with  him  for 
a  few  months  only  to  return  to  her  parents  again.  In  a  way 
she  imitated  the  conditions  that  existed  in  her  own  home. 
This  is  no  accident.  Adjustment  always  begins  at  home  and 
the  individual  always  adjusts  himself  in  proportion  to  the 
degree  of  adjustment  that  existed  in  the  home.  Whenever 
there  is  quarreling  and  friction  in  the  family,  the  child  either 
develops  a  neurosis,  or  imitates  the  home  condition  later  in 
his  life.  I  can  cite  numerous  cases  showing  how  marked 
this  imitation  is.  I  have  cases  that  go  back  to  four  genera- 
tions where  the  same  imitation  prevailed, — unhappy  married 
life,  separation,  divorce.  It  is  really  an  unconscious  repro- 
duction from  one  generation  to  another  that  is  not  at  all 
hereditary.  Mrs.  B.  very  definitely  reproduced  the  situation 
that  she  saw  in  her  own  home,  except  that  she  identified 
herself  with  the  father  rather  than  with  the  mother.  But 
she  could  not  continue  this  very  long,  presently  she  broke 
down,  she  began  to  have  hallucinations,  some  mild  delusions 
and  various  other  symptoms. 


224  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

When  I  began  to  treat  the  patient,  there  at  once  came  up 
the  problem  of  her  husband.  As  I  do  not  take  any  special 
attitude  in  such  matrimonial  difficulties,  I  left  her  to  decide 
for  herself.  It  was  a  difficult  problem  to  solve:  on  the  one 
hand,  she  did  not  wish  to  stay  with  her  husband,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  was  hard  for  her  to  stay  in  her  parents'  home.  Her 
mother  would  often  ask,  "What  would  you  do  if  I  were  to 
die  ?"  She  was  thus  but  indirectly  referring  to  the  fact  that 
if  she  were  to  die  the  father  would  at  once  marry  the 
stenographer,  and  the  daughter  would  consequently  have  to 
leave  the  house.  There  was  considerable  truth  in  this,  and 
the  argument  struck  home,  for  Mrs.  B.  always  wanted  to 
have  the  management  of  the  house  herself  and  she  feared  the 
possibility  of  seeing  it  pass  over  entirely  into  the  hands  of 
her  father's  mistress. 

Analysis  of  the  dream  revealed  that  the  man  in  the  dream 
represented  her  father;  the  woman  appeared  to  be  an  old 
lady,  perhaps  over  a  hundred  years  old,  and  resembling  her 
grandmother.  She  informed  me  that  her  mother  resembled 
her  grandmother.  Now  the  latter  died  at  eighty-six  and 
had  she  lived  until  the  day  of  the  dream  she  would  have  been 
one  hundred  and  one.  The  slight  difference  between  the 
woman  in  the  dream  and  the  mother  recalled  to  her  the 
features  of  the  stenographer,  her  father's  mistress.  The 
combined  ages  of  the  stenographer  who  was  thirty-one  and 
the  mother  was  exactly  eighty-six  years.  In  other  words, 
there  was  a  condensation  of  the  two  persons,  the  grandmother 
representing  both  the  mother  and  the  stenographer. 

In  the  dream,  as  we  see,  the  father  kills  them  both,  and 
that  is  indeed  the  best  solution  for  the  patient.  She  does  not 
sympathize  with  her  mother  and  would  often  complain, 
"There  is  no  use  talking  about  her;  she  is  crazy  and  does 
not  understand  me."  As  for  the  stenographer,  she  liked  her 
and  was  grateful  to  her  for  what  she  did  to  help  the  father. 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  225 

Her  objections  to  her  were  simply  due  to  a  feeling  of 
jealousy.  One  of  the  reasons  for  the  friction  between  her 
and  her  husband  was  that  he  could  not  supply  her  with  the 
little  luxuries  that  she  was  able  to  receive  from  her  father  at 
home,  whose  favorite  daughter  she  was.  The  only  possible 
solution  that  she  could  see  was  to  leave  her  husband  alto- 
gether and  stay  at  home.  Her  father  offered  to  help  her 
husband  but  the  husband  would  not  accept  any  aid,  though 
he  was  willing,  however,  to  live  at  home  with  her  and  thus 
save  rent.  But  she  protested  that  she  married  to  get  away 
from  her  home,  and  that  she  did  not  see  any  use  for  her 
husband  if  she  were  to  remain  at  home.  "Imagine,"  she 
declared,  "sitting  at  dinner  with  a  mother  and  a  father  who 
do  not  talk,  the  father  thinking  all  the  while  of  the  mistress ; 
and  you  sit  there,  too,  with  your  husband  whom  you  do  not 
like."  On  the  other  hand,  the  mother  was  always  ready  with 
that  powerful  argument:  "If  I  should  die,  you  know  what 
would  happen  to  you."  We  see  then  how  convenient  it  was 
for  the  father  to  kill  both  women:  the  patient  would  then 
have  the  house  for  herself  and  her  father  and  not  be 
hampered  by  a  crazy  mother  and  a  rival  mistress.  She  did 
not,  of  course,  formulate  such  a  wish  consciously,  but  you 
see  how  well  it  fits  in  with  the  situation.  It  is  remarkable 
that  there  was  this  condensation,  not  only  in  appearance,  but 
also  in  age.  The  age  of  the  old  lady  just  equals  the  com- 
bined ages  of  the  two  women.  This  may  seem  very  peculiar 
to  you  but  it  is  a  common  occurrence  in  dreams. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  the  other  work  of  the  psychic 
censor  ^  in  her  dreaming  the  dream  over  again.    This  time 

^The  psychic  censor,  as  the  term  is  used  in  our  work,  is  nothing 
but  the  inhibitions  imposed  upon  the  individual  by  society,  and  once 
established,  operates  all  the  time,  whether  we  are  awake  or  asleep. 
As  we  have  pointed  out  previously,  between  consciousness  and  the 
unconscious  there  is  a  screen  which  we  designate  as  the  fore- 
conscious.  In  the  unconscious,  the  psychic  material  is  in  the  pure 
unalloyed   form,  infantile  wishes  are  there,  primitive  urges.     But 


226  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

she  did  not  wish  her  father  to  see  that  she  observed  him 
murdering  her  mother.  The  day  previous  I  explained  to 
her  the  wish  as  the  dream-motive  and  the  modified  dream, 
therefore,  shows  her  agreement  with  what  I  told  her,  namely, 
that  every  dream  represents  the  fulfillment  of  a  hidden  wish. 
For  a  dream  repeating  something  heard  shows  that  the 
dreamer  is  in  harmony  with  the  thought  or  sentiment  ex- 
pressed. 

A  common  typical  dream  is  the  so-called  examination 
dream.  The  dreamer  usually  seems  to  be  taking  an  exami- 
nation and  has  the  same  emotional  reaction  to  it  that  we 
observe  in  the  waking  state;  he  experiences  the  same  sense 
of  uneasiness  and  uncertainty  that  accompany  the  actual 
experience.  The  strange  thing  is  that  all  during  the  dream 
he  protests  against  the  idea  of  being  subjected  to  an  examina- 
tion :  "Why  should  I  be  examined  in  this  subject,"  he  seems 
to  be  saying  to  himself.  "Am  I  not  already  a  doctor?" 
But  the  examination  nevertheless  continues.  Another  inter- 
esting thing  to  note  is  that  one  is  examined  not  in  a  subject 
in  which  one  was  poor  or  failed,  as  might  be  supposed,  but 
rather  in  a  subject  in  which  one  was  considerably  proficient. 
Analysis  shows  that  these  dreams  are  typical  of  individuals 
who  have  received  the  usual  academic  education  at  schools 
and  colleges.  Upon  examining  them  you  find  that  you  have 
them  only  at  a  time  when  you  are  about  to  embark  upon 
some  new  venture  and  you  experience  a  feeling  of  uncer- 
tainty and  fear  as  to  its  outcome.  You  go  to  bed  with  that 
same  uneasy  feeling  that  you  had  on  the  day  before  the 
examination.  "Yes,"  you  may  think  to  yourself,  "I  know 
my  subject  but  I  may  be  asked  something  that  I  do  not 

before  it  can  reach  consciousness  it  has  to  pass  through  the  fore- 
conscious  where  it  is  censored.  Upon  reaching  consciousness,  it  is 
thus  in  a  modified  and  distorted  form.  In  the  above  dream  the 
distortion  was  inevitable :  the  dreamer  could  not  openly  kill  the 
mother,  and  so  she  concealed  her  under  the  composite  person  of 
the  grandmother  and  the  stenographer. 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  227 

know."  And  so  when  you  retire  with  your  mind  uneasy 
as  to  the  outcome  of  your  undertaking,  by  association  you 
recall  that  same  emotional  feeling  experienced  in  the  past 
on  the  similar  occasion,  and  the  result  is  an  examination 
dream  in  a  subject  which  you  have  passed  with  honors,  so 
that  you  might  be  able  to  console  yourself  thus:  "Now  you 
were  afraid  before  your  examination  but  you  passed  it 
without  difficulty :  in  the  same  way  also  you  will  pass  this 
examination.  Do  not  worry,  do  not  fear."  We  must  re- 
member tliat  what  is  of  fundamental  consideration  is  the 
emotional  element  in  the  dream.  If  there  is  any  resem- 
blance between  the  emotional  element  of  to-day  and  any 
emotional  element  of  the  past,  the  dream  will  conjure  up 
the  past  in  all  its  vividness.  In  the  particular  case  it  is  a 
consolation  dream:  all  uncertainty  is  to  be  removed:  you 
are  to  be  consoled.  But  the  psychic  censor,  which  always 
realizes  that  you  are  only  dreaming,  cannot  possibly  eliminate 
the  element  of  fear  and  uncertainty  that  you  experienced  on 
the  occasion  of  the  actual  examination.  When  the  dreamer 
awakens  he  feels  greatly  relieved  that  it  was  only  a  dream. 
Some  of  you  may  recall  in  this  connection  the  case  of  the 
man  who  dreamed  that  he  was  swimming  on  a  board  in  the 
bay.  We  may  say  that  this  was  a  sort  of  examination 
dream.  In  the  dream,  as  you  remember,  a  boyhood  expe- 
rience was  revived ;  we  may  say  that  he  again  engaged  in  a 
race,  this  time,  however,  not  with  his  young  playmates  but 
with  a  board  of  directors,  and  as  in  those  boyhood  matches 
he  finds  himself  again  successful. 

There  is  a  class  of  dreams  which  continue  to  manifest 
themselves  for  weeks  and  months  until  the  wish  they  contain 
is  actually  realized.  They  are  what  are  commonly  regarded 
as  "prophetic  dreams."  A  chronic  alcoholic  showing  delu- 
sions of  jealousy  disliked  a  dog  because  his  wife  "was  more 
attached  to  the  dog  than  to  him."     He  continued  to  dream 


228  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

at  different  times  that  the  dog  was  run  over,  taken  away  by 
the  dog  catcher,  etc.,  until  one  day  during  his  wife's  absence 
he  really  disposed  of  it.  Here  the  dream  ostensibly  treated 
of  the  future,  at  least  so  the  wife  thought  on  her  return 
home.  "Poor  Fido,"  she  exclaimed,  "John  (husband) 
dreamed  only  last  week  that  he  was  caught  by  the  dog 
catchers  and  now  the  dream  has  come  true."  This  is  what 
is  designated  as  the  resolution  dream.  The  person  resolves, 
perhaps  unconsciously,  to  do  a  certain  thing  and  the  dream 
continues  to  represent  it  as  realized  until  it  is  actually  ac- 
complished. That  is  why  dreams  of  this  class  are  regarded 
as  prophetic  dreams,  "dreams  that  come  true."  I  have 
analyzed  a  number  of  them  and  all  showed  that  the  wish 
always  preceded  the  event  in  question.  Thus  one  of  my 
patients  dreamed  that  her  brother  who  lived  in  another  city 
was  dead,  and  after  relating  her  dream  to  her  husband  re- 
ceived word  that  her  brother  had  really  died.  The  analysis 
showed  that  her  brother  suffered  from  chronic  tuberculosis 
which  the  doctors  declared  fatal  months  before.  She  was 
fully  aware  of  the  gravity  of  his  malady  and  often  thought 
he  would  be  better  off  dead  than  alive.  Her  mother  lived 
with  her,  but  owing  to  her  brother's  illness,  she  stayed  with 
him.  She  was  nearing  the  end  of  a  pregnancy  and  daily 
hoped  that  her  mother  would  return  before  her  confinement. 
This  recalled  similar  experiences  of  childhood  when  her 
mother  often  neglected  her  for  the  same  brother  because 
he  was  very  delicate  and  sickly.  As  a  child  she  often  wished 
him  dead,  a  thing  quite  common  among  children  to  whom 
the  idea  of  death  means  simply  to  be  away.  The  conscious 
wish  "he  would  be  better  off  dead  than  alive"  became  the 
dream  incitor  because  it  succeeded  in  arousing  a  similar  in- 
fantile wish. 

The  realization  of  our  waking  dreams  shows  precisely  the 
same  mechanisms.     This  can  be  observed  not  only  in  the 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  229 

individual  but  in  whole  races.  We  all  know  that  the 
"Leitmotif"  of  orthodox  Judaism  is  and  always  has  been  the 
reestablishment  of  a  Jewish  nationality,  the  return  to  Jeru- 
salem; and  should  Zionism  ever  succeed  in  obtaining  Pales- 
tine, the  Biblical  dreams,  the  prophecies,  would  be  considered 
as  having  "come  true." 

Another  typical  dream  is  that  of  missing  trains.  I  would 
not  consider  this  a  typical  dream  if  it  did  not  usually  have 
one  very  important  and  distinct  connotation,  despite  its 
many  other  meanings  depending  upon  the  individual  case. 
We  observe  in  this  dream  a  state  of  anxiety;  the  individual 
experiences  all  the  unpleasantness  of  packing  hurriedly  to 
make  the  train,  he  meets  with  all  sorts  of  difficulties  and 
hindrances  on  the  way,  and  to  cap  the  climax,  he  finally 
misses  the  train.  We  have  here  again  a  consolation  dream; 
we  are  told,  as  it  were,  not  to  worry,  as  there  will  be  no 
departure.  This  type  of  dream  is  usually  a  reaction  to  the 
fear  of  death,  and  recalls  to  the  dreamer  some  scene  in  early 
childhood  when  his  parents  were  taken  from  him,  sometimes 
through  actual  death,  sometimes  for  just  some  trip,  leaving 
him  heartbroken  and  crying. 

We  must  also  not  fail  to  note  the  important  part  the  train 
plays  in  the  child's  life.  Typifying,  as  it  does,  motion  to  the 
highest  degree,  the  moving  train  has  a  powerful  hold  on  his 
imagination,  exercising  a  fascination  over  him  no  less  pro- 
found than  his  first  sense  of  awe  and  terror  at  the  sight. 

One  of  the  most  typical  dreams  is  the  flying  dream.  A 
man  related  to  me  the  following  dream  of  this  type :  He  was 
walking,  and  all  of  a  sudden  he  felt  lighter  and  lighter  and 
suddenly  he  began  to  glide  over  the  tops  of  houses  and  the 
whole  city  was  looking  up  to  him  as  to  an  aeroplane.  Such 
dreams  are  usually  found  among  people  who  have  unbounded 
ambitions,  who  wish  to  excel  and  stand  high  in  the  estimation 
of  the  world.    Very  often  it  is  found  also  among  those  who 


230  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

are  not  tall  of  stature,  who  by  no  means  relish  the  idea  of 
having  to  look  up  to  people  when  speaking  to  them.  They 
would  rather  look  down  upon  others  and  the  only  way  they 
can  realize  such  a  wish  is  in  soaring  far  above  them  or,  in 
other  words,  in  flying.  One  man  who  came  under  my  ob- 
servation had  this  type  of  dream  quite  often;  and  it  is  note- 
worthy that  his  most  ardent  wish  was  to  be  taller  than  he 
was.  He  often  resorted  to  mechanical  appliances  and  similar 
methods  to  pull  his  limbs. 

It  is  hard  to  imagine  what  an  important  role  in  life  the 
wish  to  be  taller  plays.  I  have  known  a  number  of  people 
who  informed  me  with  all  the  emotion  that  usually  goes  with 
the  disclosure  of  some  very  intimate,  personal  secret,  how 
hard  they  always  tried  to  be  just  a  little  taller.  It  is  hard  to 
realize  how  much  time,  money  and  effort  men  and  women 
spend  in  their  sanctum  sanctorum,  in  the  pursuit  of  divers 
means  and  ways  to  become  taller. 

An  unusually  interesting  typical  dream  is  the  falling 
dream.  It  is  significant  to  note  that  at  certain  times  in  life 
one  has  more  dreams  of  this  type  than  at  other  times. 
Various  investigators  in  attempting  to  account  for  the  dream 
psychologically,  have  offered  all  kinds  of  far-fetched  and 
amusing  explanations.  One  of  the  most  common  of  these 
is  that,  in  accordance  with  the  culture-epoch  theory,  the 
dream  goes  back  to  prehistoric  times,  and  in  this  particular 
case,  to  the  period  when  we  were  monkeys  and  lived  on  the 
tops  of  trees.  We  are  told  that  when  the  monkey  fell  down 
peradventure  from  the  tree  at  night,  he  was  immediately 
devoured  by  some  vicious  reptile,  and  that  it  is  for  that 
reason  that  we  never  strike  the  ground  in  the  dream.  Such 
a  notion  is  difficult  to  conceive  in  the  light  of  the  most 
modern  investigations  along  these  lines ;  surely  it  is  hard  to 
conceive  of  a  monkey  falling  down  from  a  tree  and  being 
at  once  swallowed  by  some  cowering  reptile.     Moreover,  I 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  231 

have  known  dreams  where  the  dreamer  falls  and  actually 
strikes  the  ground.  What  the  falling  dream  essentially  de- 
notes, however,  is  a  repressed  pleasure  originating  from 
motion,  which,  as  we  know,  is  a  fundamental  pleasure  prin- 
ciple in  life.  Motion  is  a  passive  root  of  sex  and  as  such  has 
a  powerful  appeal  to  young  and  old  alike.  Thus  from  time 
out  of  date,  among  uncivilized  and  civilized  peoples  alike, 
the  way  to  pacify  the  child  that  was  unsatisfied  with  nursing, 
was  to  rock  it.  We  know  that  as  the  child  grows  older  it 
likes  to  be  taken  up  by  an  adult,  thrown  up  in  the  air  and 
caught:  it  experiences  a  sense  of  exhilaration  and  pleasure 
in  the  experience.  Later  on  this  early  emotion  repeats  itself 
in  dreams,  but  then  we  now  no  longer  conceive  it  in  terms 
of  pleasure,  but,  rather  in  terms  of  pain.  It  is  now  a  re- 
pressed, a  tabooed  pleasure.  That  is  why  so  many  men  and 
women  have  these  falling  dreams  as  symbolic  of  moral 
falling.  I  have  on  record  many  dreams  of  falling  given  to 
me  by  women  when  they  were  struggling  with  the  idea  of 
moral  falling.  I  reported  a  dream  of  a  woman  who  informed 
me  that  she  dreamed  that  she  was  climbing  a  staircase  and 
found  it  very  difficult ;  she  was  always  afraid  that  she  would 
fall  down.  Right  on  top  of  the  staircase  there  stood  an  old 
classmate  of  hers  of  whom  she  knew  nothing,  not  having 
seen  her  since  they  left  school ;  she  had  heard,  however,  that 
she  was  a  most  unscrupulous,  immoral  woman  now.  Thus 
her  dream  was  the  result  of  her  struggling  with  the  repressed 
thought ;  she  was  trying  to  reach  the  station  of  her  classmate. 
The  dream  being  of  the  anxiety  type  she  woke  up  in  a 
marked  state  of  fear.  The  moral  here  is  very  evident:  "If 
you  are  going  to  do  what  you  are  thinking  of  you  will  be 
>ust  like  your  classmate";  the  classmate  standing  here  as  a 
symbol  for  moral  falling. 

There  are  dreams  which  you  might  say  are  of  a  local 
character.    This  is  particularly  observed  when  we  examine 


232  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

the  dreams  of  southern  gentlemen.  The  latter  invariably 
have  sexual  dreams  referring  to  colored  women.  This  would 
seem  strange  in  view  of  the  degree  of  aloofness  with  which 
the  colored  people  in  the  South  are  treated  by  the  white 
population.  But  I  have  never  known  a  southern  gentleman 
who  did  not  at  some  time  in  life  have  erotic  dreams  about 
colored  women.  The  reason  is  quite  apparent:  all  of  these 
men  had  negro  mammies  and  it  is  to  them  that  they  owe 
their  first  early  impression  of  the  mother.  It  is  well  known 
that  many  southern  ladies  have  practically  nothing  to  do  with 
the  care  of  their  children,  that  it  is  left  entirely  to  the 
mammy.  It  is  on  that  account  that  the  mammy  is  so  very 
often  highly  esteemed  and  even  considered  as  a  member  of 
the  family.  But  the  fact  is  that  she  is  colored  and  her  im- 
press on  the  child  manifests  itself  consequently  in  his  later 
erotic  dreams.  Whereas,  then,  the  southern  gentleman  will 
not  deign  to  be  in  the  same  car  with  a  colored  woman,  he 
has  nevertheless  shown  no  scruples  in  cohabiting  with  her  in 
his  younger  days.  This  is  unheard  of  in  any  other  place 
outside  of  the  South,  and  it  may  interest  you  to  know  that 
in  investigating  the  sexual  life  of  probably  a  few  thousand 
people  I  have  never  found  a  white  man  with  the  exception 
of  the  southern  gentleman  who  by  preference  would  have 
sexual  relations  with  a  colored  woman.  But  in  the  South 
this  is  quite  common  even  among  the  respectable  men.  Thus 
one  often  learns  that  many  so-called  gentlemen  maintained 
colored  mistresses  and  some  of  them  even  acknowledged  their 
mixed  offsprings. 

Before  leaving  the  subject  of  typical  dreams  I  wish  to 
touch  briefly  upon  another  class  of  dreams  which  we  may 
consider  more  or  less  typical, — in  which  the  dreamer  identi- 
fies himself  with  some  animal.  The  dreamer  is  here  hidden 
under  the  animal,  strange  as  that  may  seem.  To  give  you  a 
little  more  insight  into  the  nature  of  this  identification,  I 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  233 

wish  to  read  to  you  first,  the  dream  of  a  woman  who  identi- 
fied herself  with  a  dog,  and  secondly,  a  significant  part  of  a 
very  long  dream  of  a  patient  who  identified  herself  with  a 
horse.     The  first  dream  runs  as  follows: 

"Brownie  is  sick  and  we  give  him  medicine  or  we  think 
he  has  lived  long  enough,  so  we  give  him  poison.  Then  we 
regret  it  and  I  ring  up  the  veterinary.  I  wonder  whether  the 
poison  is  fatal,  and  as  I  think  about  it  I  realize  that  it  is. 
'It  is  hemlock,'  I  say  to  myself,  'and  that  is  what  they  gave 
Socrates.'  I  am  very  much  worried  and  I  am  relieved  when 
the  veterinary  arrives  and  prescribes  an  emetic  of  mustard 
and  hot  water.  My  mother  is  there  and  she  irritates  me 
because,  instead  of  helping,  she  only  wrings  her  hands  and 
cries." 

The  dreamer  has  had  the  dog  for  four  years  and  is  deeply 
attached  to  him.  She  is  always  with  him,  and  never  leaves 
him  out  of  her  sight.  The  dog  is  a  quiet,  sober  animal  and 
I  frequently  used  to  remark  to  her  that  "Brownie"  appears 
very  philosophical.  Of  late  the  patient  continued  to  fear 
that  he  might  die,  and  this,  despite  the  fact  that  she  con- 
sulted a  veterinary  who  assured  her  that  the  dog  had  still 
four  or  five  more  years  to  live.  In  the  course  of  the  analysis 
the  dreamer  recalled  a  play  in  which  a  girl  attempts  suicide : 
as  soon  as  she  has  taken  the  poison  she  begins  to  cry  for  help, 
some  one  appears  on  the  scene  and  administers  hot  water 
and  mustard  as  an  antidote.  I  would  have  you  mark  that 
these  are  the  very  medications  that  the  physician  prescribed 
for  the  dog.  She  also  recalls  that  on  the  day  previous  to  the 
dream  she  asked  a  girl  at  the  canteen  for  something  to  eat 
and  was  told  that  she  could  only  have  a  "dog  with  mustard." 
The  analysis  also  revealed  that  she  had  been  very  depressed 
of  late  and  had  thought  seriously  of  suicide.  In  time  she 
began  to  be  concerned  over  the  dog,  perhaps  he  might  die, 
she  thought, — she  thus  began  to  detach  some  of  her  own 


234  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

anxiety  from  her  own  person  to  the  animal.  But  she  is  like 
the  woman  in  the  play  who  took  the  poison  and  straightway 
called  for  help:  she  really  does  not  wish  to  die.  There  are 
so  many  people  who  merely  like  to  play  with  the  idea  of 
suicide,  because  it  offers  them  some  form  of  emotional 
outlet.  In  the  dream  the  patient  is  relieved  because  the 
veterinary  gives  the  dog  mustard  and  hot  water,  thus  saving 
his  life.  The  dream  thus  realizes  her  wish  to  live.  That 
part  of  the  dream  which  speaks  about  her  being  irritated  by 
her  mother  refers  to  the  friction  existing  between  the  patient 
and  her  mother.  Whenever  the  mother  annoyed  her  she 
would  play  sick.  The  parent  in  her  great  excitement  would 
then  send  for  the  doctor  who  would  prescribe  bromide.  In 
the  dream  we  see  the  patient  picturing  herself  dead  only  to 
revenge  herself  on  her  mother.  And  the  interesting  thing  to 
observe  is  that  this  is  all  accomplished  in  the  dream  indirectly 
through  the  person  of  the  dog  Brownie.^ 

This  identification  with  animals  is  often  real  and  profound, 
as  the  analysis  of  the  following  dream  very  definitely  shows. 
The  dreamer  is  a  noted  animal  painter,  a  woman  who  has 
always  loved  animals.  One  of  her  greatest  pleasures  in  life 
is  to  frolic  about  in  her  studio,  walking  on  all  fours  in  imi- 
tation of  a  pony.     Her  dream  runs  as  follows : 

"I  am  ivalking  in  a  sort  of  side  path  from  S.  .  .  .  Station 
on  my  way  home.  My  skirt  is  up  and  I  pass  a  hard  stool 
like  a  horse.  I  look  around  and  see  a  woman  walking  some 
little  distance  behind,  there  is  perhaps  a  strip  of  something 
across  her  face,  a  veil  covering  one  eye.  I  hope  she  doesn't 
see  me  and  ridicule  me.  Again  I  pass  a  hard  stool  and  turn 
around  and  hope  the  woman  hasn't  seen  me.  I  am  walking 
with  some  one,  probably  my  father.  I  get  into  the  road  to 
drive  a  horse,  possibly  an  ass.     Mr.  L.  gives  me  the  reins, 

\Ci.  dream  about  the  two  cats  fighting,  another  example  of 
atiimal  identification. 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  235 

which  are  not  at  all  reins,  hut  a  single  strap  attachment 
zvithout  bridle  or  a  bit.  I  am  driving:  I  seem  to  have 
stopped  in  the  road  with  the  horse,  and  the  cart  turned  the 
other  direction.  I  am  adjusting  the  harness  at  the  collar 
or  something;  there  is  a  loose,  sorrel  mare  zvhich  comes  up; 
she  is  very  beautiful,  with  a  delicate  head  and  nose,  and 
slender  limbs.  She  stands  right  up  against  my  horse,  cheek 
to  cheek,  as  though  to  make  friends  with  him  or  me.  I  slap 
her  on  the  side  of  the  nose  but  she  insists  upon  standing 
there.  I  slap  her  again,  and  as  I  put  my  hand  up  touHird 
her  again  she  bites  or  attempts  to  bite.  As  I  resist,  I  say, 
'She  bites.'  She  seems  to  have  gone  down  under  a  bridge 
or  subway.  I  want  Mr.  L.  to  keep  her  there  while  I  get 
away  with  my  horse  over  the  bridge.  There  seems  to  be 
some  difficulty.  At  last  I  go  down  to  see  how  he  is  manag- 
ing her,  or  to  assist.  She  is  nozu  a  young  woman,  pale  and 
thin,  and  not  in  her  right  mind.  Mr.  L.  is  holding  her  by 
a  string  in  her  nose: — a  piece  of  wire.  I  am  afraid  it  will 
tear  and  I  say  so.  She  comes  toward  me  with  her  face 
near  mine  and  I  am  greatly  frightened ;  she  has  a  hairy  lip 
and  is  much  older.     I  azvake  in  fright." 

Mrs.  K.,  the  dreamer,  is  a  married  woman  of  twenty-six, 
who  consulted  me  originally  because  she  was  nervous.  As 
far  as  the  outer  world  was  concerned  she  seemed  perfectly 
normal,  her  intimate  friends  never  knew  that  there  was 
anything  troubling  her.  The  outstanding  factor  in  her 
psychic  life  is  a  condition  that  she  had  revealed  to  no  one, — 
the  fact  that  she  hated  to  be  a  woman  and  always  desired  to 
be  a  man.  This  "masculine  protest"  as  the  feeling  is  desig- 
nated is  not  as  uncommon  a  mechanism  as  it  may  seem. 
The  dream  is  most  significant,  for  it  actually  reveals  the  very 
mainsprings  of  her  whole  psychic  development  and  thus 
offers  a  remarkable  analysis  of  her  whole  neurosis. 

"Going  from  S.  .  .  .  Station"  refers  to  the  place  where 


236  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

she  used  to  live  when  a  little  girl.  "Walking  with  her  skirt 
up," — to  this  it  was  most  difificult  for  her  to  associate,  because 
she  is  a  very  clean-minded  woman.  But  it  goes  back  to  her 
unusual  attachment  to  horses.  At  a  very  early  age  she 
evinced  a  tremendous  interest  in  them,  at  the  age  of  four  or 
five  years  she  always  craved  to  be  a  horse,  and  identified  first, 
her  father  and  then  herself  with  the  horse.  We  can  now 
begin  to  see  the  reason  for  the  strange  situation, — "My  skirt 
is  up  and  I  pass  a  hard  stool  like  a  horse," — it  is  plainly  the 
result  of  her  identification  with  a  horse,  it  is  an  expression  of 
her  wish  to  be  a  horse.  We  may  already  see  how  profound 
and  deep  rooted  is  her  identification.  It  is  highly  significant 
also  that  one  of  her  symptoms  is  marked  constipation  from 
which  she  suffered  for  years.  I  am  glad  to  say  that  since 
the  analysis  of  this  dream,  the  symptom  has  entirely  disap- 
peared. 

The  woman  "walking  some  little  distance  behind"  is  her 
stepmother  whom  she  describes  as  having  been  just,  though 
critical  toward  her.  In  the  dream  the  patient  sees  a  "strip 
across  her  face,  a  veil  covering  one  eye."  This  is  a  picture 
of  Justice  and  she  recalls  a  cartoon  of  Justice  that  she  saw  in 
one  of  the  local  newspapers.  The  woman  became  her  step- 
mother when  Mrs.  K.  was  five  years  old  and  though  she 
really  treated  her  as  a  daughter,  she  has  always  remained  the 
one  person  of  whom  the  patient  was  extremely  jealous :  Mrs. 
K.  could  never  forgive  her  father  for  marrying  her. 

Mr.  L.  is  her  brother  who  represents  her  ideal  type  of 
man,  the  type  of  man  whom  she  would  have  liked  to  marry. 
The  horse  is  really  herself.  "And  possibly  an  ass," — to  this 
she  associated  her  stepmother,  thus  identifying  herself  with 
the  stepmother  in  order  to  be  with  her  father.  We  see  that 
she  is  desirous  of  taking  the  stepmother's  place. 

The  analysis  revealed  also  that  every  time  the  patient  meets 
a  man  she  experiences  a  morbid  dread  that  he  might  "bridle 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  237 

her  and  put  a  bit  in  her  mouth ;"  it  is  for  that  reason  that 
she  craves  to  be  a  man,  and  protests  against  being  a  woman. 
This  is  the  crux  of  her  emotional  difficulties.  We  know  that 
at  a  certain  period  of  her  development  almost  every  girl 
would  like  to  be  a  boy.  But  when  the  girl  reaches  a  certain 
age  she  begins  to  realize  that  she  cannot  do  the  things  that 
boys  do,  she  gradually  adjusts  herself  to  a  girl's  normal  in- 
terests and  occupations.  This  is  as  it  should  be.  As  women 
are  biologically  different  from  men,  they  must  be  brought 
up  as  women,  and  not  as  men ;  we  should  give  them  an  edu- 
cation that  fits  them  for  womanhood.  That  is  why  it  is  so 
absolutely  necessary  to  guard  most  carefully  against  bringing 
up  a  girl  to  be  a  tomboy.  We  must  remember  also  to  begin 
training  the  child  to  react  normally  very  early,  for  it  will  be 
most  difficult  for  him  to  give  up  an  abnormal  mode  of  re- 
action later  in  life,  after  it  has  become  a  second  habit,  so  to 
speak. 

The  dreamer,  then,  always  craved  to  be  a  man,  though  she 
was  not  at  all  homosexual;  her  cravings  were  perfectly 
normal.  She  married  a  man  who  loved  her  deeply,  out  of 
sheer  pity  for  him,  as  she  maintains.  She  does  not  treat 
him  at  all  as  a  husband,  for  it  is  she  herself  that  desires  to  be 
the  man ;  she  would  be  extremely  jealous,  for  example,  if  he 
could  shoot  better  than  she.  Out  in  the  country  she  once 
observed  him  to  do  a  high  jump  and  when  she  found  that 
she  could  not  do  it,  she  actually  practised  for  days,  until  she 
learned  it. 

From  very  early  childhood,  the  dreamer  always  identified 
herself  with  her  father.  She  still  imitates  him  practically  in 
everything.  The  man  was  exceedingly  fond  of  horses,  and 
her  own  love  of  horses  goes  back  to  this  source.  When  she 
was  a  little  girl  he  always  played  horse  with  her,  the  practise 
continuing  to  as  late  as  nine  and  ten.  It  was  the  little  girl's 
greatest  delight.     She  learned  to  neigh  and  romp  like  a  horse. 


238  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

The  father,  needless  to  say,  fell  right  in  the  spirit  of  the 
game,  encouraging  the  little  girl,  and  offering  her,  as  he 
thought,  a  source  of  great  pleasure. 

The  mare  coming  up  to  her,  "with  a  delicate  head  and  nose 
and  slender  limbs,"  represents  her  ideal  horse.  The  dreamer 
has  studied  and  painted  horses  for  years  and  knows  con- 
siderably about  them,  she  may  be  justly  considered  a  second 
Rosa  Bonheur.  "She  stands  right  up  against  my  horse, 
cheek  to  cheek,  etc.— I  slap  her  on  the  side  of  the  nose.  .  .  .": 
this  refers  to  a  woman  who  is  involved  in  an  affair  with  a 
man  whom  she  loves.  And  as  we  read  on,  we  find  that  the 
mare  actually  turns  out  to  be  a  woman. 

From  the  above  brief  analysis  we  may  readily  see  that  the 
dreamer  retained  what  we  may  call  her  whole  infantile 
sexuality.  Her  father  was  to  no  small  degree  responsible  for 
this.  As  nice  as  it  may  be  to  play  horse  with  one's  child, 
it  is  not  quite  the  thing  to  do  at  the  age  of  nine,  ten  or 
eleven,  at  this  time  it  is  altogether  too  infantile  a  pastime  for 
father  and  child  to  engage  in.  How  much  better  it  would 
have  been  had  he  taken  her  out  for  a  walk  and  indulged  in 
some  pleasure  appropriate  for  a  child  of  that  age. 

This  identification  with  animals  is  not  at  all  unusual.  We 
have  seen  a  notable  example  of  it  in  the  case  of  the  young 
woman  who  accused  herself  of  having  drowned  those  pups. 
We  saw  how  real  and  profound  was  the  identification  and  the 
surprising  extent  to  which  it  affected  the  young  woman 
physically.  We  find  this  mechanism  in  a  more  glaring  form 
among  the  insane.  Long  before  I  was  a  medical  student,  I 
remember  observing  at  Blackwell's  Island  a  patient  who  was 
known  as  "Johnny  the  Horse."  He  imagined  that  he  was  a 
horse,  he  always  pulled  a  little  cart  after  him,  ran,  galloped 
and  behaved  in  every  respect  like  a  horse.  I  have  heard  that 
he  continued  in  this  condition  until  his  death.  Apropos  of 
this  you  may  recall  the  biblical  story  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  who 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  239 

considered  himself  an  animal  when  he  became  insane.  Such 
cases  are  known  to  psychiatrists  as  lycanthropia  or  delusions 
of  transformation.  Such  patients  very  often  imagine  them- 
selves to  be  animals  and  imitate  them  in  every  possible  way. 

We  observe  a  similar  condition  also  in  normal  life.  A 
great  many  people  show  a  marked  attachment  to  animals,  and 
sometimes  even  take  them  as  substitutes  for  children,  when 
the  latter  are  denied  them.  There  is  no  objection  to  animals 
as  pets  provided  the  environment  is  suitable  and  the  animals 
are  well  cared  for.  They  offer  a  good  outlet  to  grown  ups 
and  children.  I  recommend  pets  especially  in  the  case  of 
only  children.  I  prefer  dogs  and  birds,  animals  that  can 
enter  into  rapport  with  the  human  being.  I  am  against  such 
pets  as  white  rats  or  snakes,  because  instead  of  helping  the 
individual  to  learn  to  give  and  take  emotions  more  freely, 
they  actually  tend  to  isolate  him ;  people  as  a  rule  either  avoid 
a  person  who  keeps  such  animals,  or  else  regard  him  as  a 
freak. 

Pets  have  their  purpose  as  an  emotional  outlet,  and  as  such 
fall  into  the  same  category  with  collections ;  both  offer  modes 
of  emotional  expression.  They  are  valuable,  particularly  in 
the  case  of  an  individual  who  lacks  the  opportunity  to  direct 
his  affection  normally  toward  children,  family  or  friend. 

It  is  a  fundamental  truth  that  the  human  being  must  have 
somebody,  or  something  to  love  all  the  time:  if  he  cannot 
direct  his  libido  toward  some  human  being,  he  directs  it 
toward  some  animal  or  inanimate  object,  or  sublimates  it  in 
some  activity.  It  is  well  known  that  we  become  attached  not 
only  to  a  certain  locality  but  to  a  certain  home,  a  certain 
room,  a  certain  bed,  etc.  I  have  actually  had  to  treat  a  man 
because  his  chair  in  which  he  sat  for  thirty  years  was  de- 
stroyed. The  history  of  suicides  shows  very  definitely  that 
the  individual  was  led  to  self-destruction  because  he  had 
nobody  and  nothing  to  love.     While  there  is  love,  there  is 


240  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

life,  to  paraphrase  an  old  hackneyed  saying.  I  know  that 
some  people  will  never  commit  suicide  no  matter  in  what 
distressing  and  harrowing  circumstances  they  may  find  them- 
selves, for  an  intimate  study  of  their  lives  shows  that  they 
have  some  person  or  object  to  whom  they  are  deeply  attached. 
That  is  why  we  so  often  hear  the  well-known  formula: 
"If  not  for  my  children, — if  not  for  my  love  of  art, — etc., 
etc.,  I  would  have  been  dead  long  ago."  I  have  known  a  man 
who  informed  me  that  the  only  thing  that  keeps  him  from 
taking  his  life  is  his  love  for  his  pigeons.  I  am  convinced 
that  were  it  not  for  that,  he  would  commit  suicide.  That  is 
why  abnormally  attached  lovers  sometimes  commit  suicide 
when  they  are  torn  away  from  each  other.  When  they  are 
deprived  of  the  love  object  they  experience  a  terrible  feeling 
of  voidness,  they  feel  that  there  is  nothing  left  for  them  in  the 
world,  for  the  moment  they  cannot  take  their  detached  libido 
and  fix  it  upon  some  other  object,  and  they  commit  suicide. 
When  I  was  abroad  in  1905,  I  read  about  a  couple  in  Paris 
who  committed  suicide  because  their  cat  was  killed.  While 
they  were  out  driving,  the  animal  jumped  off  the  carriage  and 
was  killed.  There  is  no  doubt  that  they  identified  the  cat 
with  a  child,  and  now  that  it  was  gone  out  of  their  life  they 
felt  tliat  they  had  nothing  more  to  live  for. 

It  is  such  intimate  relationships  formed  in  early  childhood 
between  human  beings  and  animals  that  make  for  this  identi- 
fication in  both  normal  and  abnormal  mental  life  and  lay  the 
basis  for  the  appearance  of  animals  in  dreams. 

We  have  noted  thus  far  some  of  the  general  principles  of 
dream  analysis  and  now  I  propose  to  be  more  concrete  and 
give  you  some  conception  of  the  dream  as  it  appears  in  its 
manifold  associations  and  details.  I  hope  to  show  you  in 
this  way  how  every  detail  in  the  dream  is  manifoldly  deter- 
mined, or  over  determined.     I  have  chosen  two  dreams  for 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  241 

that  purpose.  The  first  of  these  reads  as  follows:  "It  was 
Easter  Sunday  and  I  had  been  commissioned  to  bring  some 
buns  to  my  aunts.     On  my  zvay  to  their  hottie  I 

saw  my  uncle  on  the  other  side  of  the  street;  he  loanifoifliy 
.7  t ,.      -i       J-       ,•  J  Determined 

ivas  going  tn  the  opposite  direction  and  car- 
ried under  his  arm  a  dog  which  I  recognised  as  belong- 
ing to  my  aunts.  A  little  further  on  I  met  Miss  G., 
a  social  worker;  she  referred  to  Mr.  X.,  to  the  effect  that  he 
was  worth  his  weight  in  gold  or  some  baser  metal.  When  I 
reached  the  house  of  my  aunts  I  found  the  dog  there;  ap- 
parently he  had  come  back.  My  aunt  complained  that  since 
uncle  was  so  fond  of  the  dog,  she  had  consented  to  his  taking 
him  along,  knowing  that  the  animal  would  find  his  way  back. 
The  dog  began  to  play  with  me.  I  put  my  hand  in  his  mouth 
and  said,  'Rover,  don't  hurt  me!'  My  brother  George  was 
there  and  as  he  watched  me  playing  with  the  dog,  remarked: 
'Make  believe  my  little  fellow  wouldn't  like  a  dog  like  that 
to  play  with.'  At  that,  some  one,  I  think  it  was  the  dog  him- 
self, spoke:  'Why  there  is  a  puppy  here,  Rover's  puppy; 
Rover  hasn't  enough  milk  for  it.  The  poor  little  thing  needs 
human  milk!'  I  zvondered  how  Rover  came  to  have  a  puppy, 
and  my  aunts  explained  that  Rover  had  met  another  dog 
Coucho  in  the  woods." 

When  the  person  is  asked  what  caused  him  to  have  such  a 
dream,  he  usually  betrays  utter  ignorance  at  first,  but  upon  a 
little  reflection,  soon  recalls  some  incident  of  the  day  previous 
to  the  dream.  Very  often  he  may  even  reproduce  some 
situation  that  happened  long  before  the  dream,  but  it  was 
invariably  something  of  the  day  before  the  dream  that  starts 
the  trend  of  the  associations.  Accordingly  the  particular 
dreamer  in  question  recalled  that  she  had  read  on  the 
previous  day  some  notice  about  a  preacher  who  was  going  to 
speak  at  a  certain  church  that  she  usually  attends  on  Easter 
day.     That  very  day  she  also  thought  of  her  mother's  family; 


242  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

on  Easter  day  she  usually  visits  her  aunts,  and  that  is  why 
it  happened  to  be  Easter  day  in  the  dream,  though  in  reality 
it  was  by  no  means  near  the  spring  holiday.  When  she 
visits  her  aunts,  she  usually  takes  along  buns;  it  is  a  sort 
of  family  custom.  The  uncle  is  the  man  who  died  a  few 
years  ago  and  whom  she  often  used  to  meet  in  her  aunts' 
home.  He  was  very  fond  of  the  aunts,  of  whom,  by  the 
way,  there  were  three,  and  also  of  their  dog.  The  man  was 
considered  a  capitalist  and  the  dreamer  states  that  he  was 
quite  wealthy  when  he  died.  As  far  back  as  the  dreamer 
could  remember,  the  aunts  always  had  black  dogs. 

Miss  G.,  the  social  worker  whom  she  met,  brought  these 
associations :  Yesterday  the  dreamer  called  on  Mrs.  B.,  the 
mother  of  her  dead  friend ;  the  latter  wanted  her  to  call  with 
her  on  Mr.  X.  mentioned  in  the  dream,  but  the  dreamer  re- 
fused to  do  so.  Mr.  X.  once  had  a  love  affair  with  the 
dreamer  and  she  hoped  he  would  marry  her ;  but  he  married 
another  woman,  primarily  for  the  latter's  money.  Very  few 
people  know  about  this  old  love  affair  and  that  is  why  she 
would  not  call  on  him  with  Mrs.  B. 

Miss  G.  spoke  about  Mr.  X.  in  the  dream  and  declared  that 
he  was  worth  his  weight  in  gold  or  some  baser  metal.  This 
brought  forth  the  following  story:  The  dreamer  read  a 
story  in  the  evening  newspaper  the  night  before  the  dream 
about  a  negro,  Cato  Alexander  by  name,  who  died  in  New 
York  in  1832.  The  account  stated  that  this  negro  was 
originally  a  slave  who  had  somehow  bought  his  freedom  and 
came  to  New  York  where  he  opened  a  tavern.  Being  an  ex- 
cellent cook,  he  became  in  time  immensely  rich.  He  had  a 
daughter  and  to  any  white  man  who  would  marry  her,  he 
offered  her  weight  in  gold.  According  to  the  newspaper, 
his  wish  was  never  realized.  Mr,  X.  has  been  very  pros- 
perous since  he  married,  and  is  now  "immensely  rich,"  You 
see  in  the  dream  she  speaks  about  his  "worth"  in  terms  of 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  243 

"gold"  or  some  "baser"  metal,  the  adjective  "baser"  having 
in  this  connection  a  distinct  and  peculiar  significance,  be- 
cause she  hates  him  and  always  thinks  of  him  as  "that  dog." 

As  for  the  dogs,  she  remembers  that  in  walking  to  the 
subway  station  from  her  home,  she  saw  a  lady  exercising 
three  dogs.  That  reminds  her  of  her  aunts  who  also  had 
three  dogs.  This  recalled  a  letter  that  she  read  in  the  New 
York  Times  in  which  the  writer  discussed  the  question 
whether  animals  are  guided  by  reason  or  instinct  and  con- 
cluded that  dogs  show  considerable  reasoning  power ;  he 
cited  the  example  of  a  dog  who  though  taken  a  long  distance 
away  from  his  home,  nevertheless  found  his  way  back,  the 
case  thus  demonstrating  a  very  complex  form  of  reasoning 
on  the  part  of  the  animal. 

We  have  here  already  a  great  many  associations  which 
throw  considerable  light  on  the  dream.  In  the  first  place, 
it  is  evident  that  Mr.  X,  is  identified  with  the  dog.  The 
association  about  the  negro  who  desired  a  white  man  to 
marry  his  daughter  for  her  weight  in  gold  is  a  bit  of  analogy 
to  Mr.  X.  who  married  a  woman  for  her  money  and  whose 
whole  aim  in  life  was  the  acquisition  of  money.  That  is  why 
he  was  referred  to  as  being  worth  his  weight  in  gold  or  some 
baser  metal,  and  compared  to  a  white  man  who  would 
marry  a  negress  for  money. 

Her  brother,  George,  in  the  dream,  she  saw  in  church  last 
on  Easter  Sunday,  and  she  had  occasion  to  think  deeply 
about  him  on  the  day  before  the  dream.  The  last  time  she 
met  him,  he  spoke  about  Mr.  X.  and  made  some  unkind, 
caustic  remark  about  him  ;  but  she  could  only  recall  his  saying 
that  Mr.  X.  was  "a  sucker  and  a  dog."  Indeed,  that  was 
what  the  whole  family  thought  of  him. 

As  for  having  the  dog  talk, — that  is  not  at  all  impossible 
in  the  dream.  You  may  recall,  I  am  sure,  the  acrimonious 
buffet  of  words  between  the  two  cats,  to  which  I  drew  your 


244  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

attention  in  another  connection.  In  dreams,  as  in  fables  and 
mythology,  inanimate  and  animate  things  know  none  of  those 
limitations  that  they  may  possess  in  reality;  note,  for  in- 
stance, that  we  have  talking  trees  in  Greek  mythology. 

To  the  dog's  saying,  "the  poor  little  thing  needs  human 
milk,  etc."  she  gave  the  following  association:  She  holds  a 
position  of  considerable  importance,  and  was  recently  pre- 
sented with  a  few  liberty  bonds  for  a  charitable  purpose  by 
the  manager ;  they  were  given  to  her  with  some  ceremonial 
and  in  his  speech  he  referred  to  the  dreamer  as  being  "full 
of  the  milk  of  human  kindness."  And  that  is  exactly  what 
Mr.  X.  needs;  he  is  devoid  of  all  these  fine  qualities,  he  is 
hard  and  mercenary,  he  needs  a  little  of  "the  milk  of  human 
kindness." 

Please  note  that  the  words  spoken  by  the  dog  were  almost 
an  exact  reproduction  of  the  words  heard  before  the  dream. 
A  quotation  in  the  dream  is  always  based  on  something 
heard  or  read  but  it  is  usually  modified  by  the  dream  to  fit 
the  situation  in  the  dream. 

The  dreamer  now  returns  to  her  aunts  who  were  four  in 
number,  three  of  whom  are  living.  Their  present  dog  is  a 
male  puppy  and  it  is  the  third  that  they  have  owned.  The 
former  one,  called  Nellie,  died  of  old  age,  and  it  was  jocu- 
larly remarked  in  the  family,  that  just  like  her  mistress,  she 
died  a  virgin;  she  was  never  allowed  out  of  the  house. 
Rover  meeting  Coucho  in  the  woods  recalled  to  her  a  story 
by  John  Burroughs  that  she  had  read  in  the  newspaper;  it 
dealt  with  the  mating  habits  of  bucks,  how  they  try  to  get 
as  many  does  as  they  possibly  can,  that  they  have  a  regular 
"harem."  Now  according  to  the  dream  the  dog  met  in  the 
woods  another  dog  called  Coucho;  she  knew  of  no  such 
name,  but  she  soon  resolved  it  into  couch  and  the  French 
"coucher,"  to  lie. 

The  dream  represents  the  fulfillment  of  a  wish.     Despite 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  245 

the  fact  that  at  present  the  dreamer  consciously  has  absolutely 
no  regard  for  Mr.  X.  and  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  him, 
she  nevertheless  was  in  love  with  him  in  the  past  and  would 
have  married  him,  had  he  so  desired ;  consciously,  she  enter- 
tains no  such  hope  now,  but  we  still  see  traces  of  this  old 
attachment  in  the  unconscious.  He  comes  back,  as  we  see  in 
the  dream,  though  he  is  treated  rather  roughly  and  unspar- 
ingly ;  he  lacks  all  the  finer  qualities ;  he  is  base  and  despic- 
able,— a  very  dog, — a  man  who  would  marry  even  a  negress 
for  money.  He  is  carried  by  the  uncle,  because  the  latter 
put  him  on  his  feet  financially  and  helped  him  in  every  way 
to  become  successful ;  he  is  carried  in  the  opposite  direction, 
or  in  other  words,  to  her  home.  For  indeed,  the  uncle  hoped 
that  by  helping  him,  Mr.  X.  would  marry  his  niece;  he  as- 
sisted him  because  he  thought  that  Mr.  X.'s  reluctance  to 
marry  her  was  largely,  if  not  entirely,  due  to  economic  and 
financial  drawbacks. 

How  did  this  dream  come  about?  Its  main  determinant 
was  the  visit  the  day  before  to  Mrs.  B.  who,  not  knowing 
what  had  passed  between  Mr.  X.  and  the  dreamer,  sug- 
gested innocently  that  they  call  on  him  and  his  wife.  Mrs. 
B.  even  remarked,  "It's  too  bad  you  didn't  care  to  marry 
him."  The  dreamer  said  nothing  in  reply,  but  this  un- 
doubtedly stimulated  many  emotionally  accentuated  ideas. 
We  have  this  visit,  then,  which  consciously  was  just  a  dis- 
agreeable episode ;  unconsciously,  in  the  dream,  it  revived  the 
whole  past  by  taking  all  the  associations  that  were  fresh  in 
her  mind,  particularly  the  story  about  the  negro  and  his 
daughter  whose  dowry  was  to  be  her  weight  in  gold.  "Mr. 
X.  is  worth  his  weight  in  gold,  or  some  baser  metal,"  we 
learn  in  the  dream,  an  indirect  comparison,  of  course,  be- 
tween him  and  the  man  who  was  to  marry  the  negro  woman. 
The  unconscious  repressed  wish  still  lingers  there,  and  the 
uncle,  who  is  now  dead,  and  who  in  the  past  tried  to  have 


246  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Mr.  X.  marry  his  niece  by  aiding  him  financially,  is  carrying 
him  back  to  her  home.  Reading  also  on  the  same  day  about 
the  mating  instincts  of  bucks,  she  unconsciously  thought  of 
what  Mr.  X.  had  insinuated,  when  he  broke  to  her  the  news 
of  his  engagement,  namely,  that  that  ought  not  make  any 
difference  in  their  relationships.  You  see  here  the  indirect 
analogy  to  the  idea  of  the  "harem."  Thus,  then,  quite  un- 
consciously, because  of  these  episodes  that  touched  certain 
analogous  situations  which  in  reality  were  very  imperfect 
comparisons,  the  dream  was  formed.  We  may  readily  see 
that  when  she  went  to  sleep,  she  thought  again  of  her  con- 
versation with  Mrs.  B.  and  about  the  significant  remarks  that 
the  latter  had  made.  But  she  could  not  consciously  dwell  on 
the  situation  and  pushed  it  out  of  consciousness.  If  she  had 
allowed  herself  to  think  of  it,  and  all  the  reminiscences  of 
her  sad  experiences  with  Mr.  X.  she  would  not  have  fallen 
asleep ;  so  she  crowded  out,  as  it  were,  all  thought  of  him 
from  her  mind  and  all  those  episodes  of  the  day,  particu- 
larly those  which  showed  an  erotic  accent,  were  immediately 
taken  up  and  woven  into  the  dream,  for  they  fitted  in  with 
the  present  situation  and  could  thus  realize  the  wish. 

You  can  now  the  more  readily  see  what  we  mean  when  we 
say  that  there  are  two  streams  to  every  dream.  The  first  one 
is  always  in  conflict  with  the  second  ;  an  individual  may  desire 
something,  but  as  it  is  impossible  to  realize,  either  because 
it  is  not  permitted  or  because  it  is  unattainable,  there  imme- 
diately ensues  a  sort  of  conflict  in  which  the  mind  takes  it  up 
and  with  a  few  modifications  finally  realizes  it.  The  modi- 
fications are  entirely  determined  by  what  we  call  the  psychic 
censor  which  always  stands  between  these  two  streams.  In- 
stead of  allowing  the  original  wish  to  be  realized  in  its  pure 
form,  the  psychic  censor  modifies  it  so  that  you  can  realize 
it  even  in  the  unconscious  without  shocking  your  other  self. 
You  remember  the  dream  about  Venus  and  Apollo ;  it  would 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  247 

have  been  impossible  with  the  dreamer's  psychic  make-up; 
so  that  both  characters  had  to  be  invested,  as  it  were,  with  all 
sorts  of  disguises.  Here,  instead  of  consciously  thinking 
of  the  mating  instincts  of  bucks,  and  dwelling  openly  on  the 
sex  question  and  everything  appertaining  to  it,  there  was  a 
marked  repression  and  you  have  only  a  mere  allusion  to  the 
situation.  We  learn  merely  that  the  dog,  Rover,  went  into 
the  woods,  where  he  met  another  dog  by  the  peculiar  name 
of  "Coucho ;"  we  thus  see  in  what  an  ingenious  way  the  es- 
sential idea  is  concealed. 

We  must  bear  in  mind  that  in  analyzing  the  dream  it  is 
necessary  to  ask  the  dreamer :  "What  do  the  elements  in  the 
dream  recall?  What  associations  do  they  arouse  in  your 
mind?"  If  the  element  is  an  apple,  for  instance,  and  the 
person  in  question  draws  it  in  the  shape  of  a  heart,  and  gives 
you  half  a  dozen  associations  that  very  definitely  refer  to 
affairs  of  the  heart  and  temptation,  then  the  apple  can  stand 
for  that  group  of  ideas  and  that  only;  it  can  represent  no 
other,  for  it  arouses  in  the  mind  only  those  associations  that 
refer  to  love  and  temptation.  In  each  person^  of  course, 
certain  elements  recall  certain  associations  and  depending 
upon  the  nature  of  the  individual's  psychic  life,  you  have 
this  or  that  meaning.  But  when  the  associations  continually 
revolve  about  an  element  in  a  certain  definite  way,  then  it 
can  denote  one  thing  and  one  thing  only,  it  only  points  to 
some  one  definite  and  special  fact.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the 
element  apple  .should  call  forth  in  the  same  person's  mind, 
associations  referring  not  to  love  but  to  taste,  such  as  "sour" 
and  the  like,  then  it  would  undoubtedly  have  an  altogether 
different  significance.  In  other  words,  we  cannot  categori- 
cally declare  that  an  element  denotes  just  one  thing  and  no 
other;  its  significance  is  to  be  determined  only  in  the  light 
of  the  situation  in  which  it  is  found,  that  is,  it  must  be  in- 
terpreted through  its  latent  content. 


248  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

The  second  dream  that  I  have  chosen  for  our  more  or 
less  detailed  consideration,  I  analyzed  witli  one  of  my  pa- 
tients, a  married  woman,  who,  upon  my  request,  has  written 
it  out  with  fine  accuracy.  It  runs  as  follows:  "A  small 
tower  or  room  at  the  corner  of  a  house  or  barn  in  the 
country.  A  young  woman,  rather  tall  and  slim,  has  been 
shut  up  in  it.  I  am  greatly  distressed  and  immediately  I 
{or  my  young  woman  companion  or  both)  determine  to , 
break  in  and  save  her.  We  do  so  out  of  a  sense  of  profound 
sympathy  for  the  suffering  {asphyxiation  and  smothering) 
that  she  is  probably  undergoing  and  with  a  feeling  of  deadly 
shrinking  and  repulsion  from  the  horror  of  the  sight.  I 
say,  to  comfort  and  give  us  confidence:  'She  is  dead,  she 
took  poison.'  We  found  indeed  that  she  is  dead,  most  parts 
of  the  body  being  dried  and  brittle  like  a  mummy, — the  head 
and  the  mouth, — the  latter  shaped  a  little  like  a  turtle,  a  little 
like  a  mitre, — the  mouth  through  which  she  breathed  her 
last  agony  and  drank  the  poison.  The  hands  are  broken  off 
at  the  wrist  and  hang  down  from  the  square  stone  post 
or  elevated  portion  in  the  small  room.  They  are  still  soft, 
the  -flesh  on  them  white  as  of  a  fresh  corpse.  The  rest  of 
the  body  is  dismembered  and  thrown  over  this  raised  portion 
of  the  room." 

The  following  are  the  associations  that  she  gave  me  when 
she  came  to  see  me :  "I  awoke  lying  on  my  back  with  an  un- 
comfortable feeling  in  my  stomach,  perhaps  due  to  the  very 
sandy  soft  clams  I  had  eaten  for  supper.  I  had  taken  the 
day  before  a  dose  of  cascara  to  get  rid  of  a  cold  and  catarrhal 
condition  that  was  considerably  aggravated  by  my  trip  to  my 
brother  in  Chicago.  I  associate  this  with  the  poisoning  in  the 
dream.  The  asphyxiation  may  have  been  suggested  by  my 
being  too  warmly  and  heavily  covered  in  bed  or  by  my 
breathing  somewhat  under  the  bed  clothes.  (We  thus  see 
the  determinant  of  the  feeling  of  asphyxiation  and  smother- 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  249 

ing).  Then  I  heard  Tommy  (Joseph's  young  cat)  mewing 
somewhere  outside,  as  if  in  great  distress.  His  mother  who 
was  sleeping  on  my  bed  ran  out  with  her  ears  pricked  to 
find  out  what  was  the  matter.  I  sHd  into  my  overcoat  and 
rubber  boots,  for  it  was  raining  heavily  and  went  outside 
with  the  lantern.  It  was  3.30  a.  m.  Now  the  mother  cat 
is  wont  to  Jump  over  between  two  piazza  roofs  every  night 
to  come  in  through  the  upper  windows,  but  Tommy,  though 
he  can  climb  the  wisteria,  has  not  ventured  this  jump  as  yet. 
So  it  occurred  to  me  that  he  might  have  tried  it  and  failed 
and  that  I  should  find  him  hanging  by  one  claw,  perhaps 
afraid  to  drop.  But  this  was  not  the  case.  I  located  him 
presently  on  the  garret  roof  and  got  him  down  with  the  step 
ladder. 

"This  episode  might  have  occasioned  the  dream;  Tommy 
might  have  mewed  and  then  stopped  for  a  while  before  I 
awakened.  The  thought  of  going  out  to  rescue  a  cat  in 
distress  that  perhaps  was  entangled  in  wire,  or  perhaps  was 
mad,  was  distinctly  disagreeable."  Here  again  as  in  the 
dream  caused  by  the  alarm  clock  to  which  I  drew  attention 
previously,  we  see  that  a  stimulus,  probably  of  very  short 
duration,  produced  the  whole  dream.  Added  to  this,  there 
were  the  other  significant  factors:  she  was  warmly  covered 
and  the  room  was  stuffy;  she  is  also  suffering  from  some 
form  of  poisoning.  The  mewing  of  the  cat,  then,  which 
undoubtedly  brought  up  in  the  unconscious  all  tlie  possi- 
bilities that  might  have  really  occurred,  produced  the  dream 
of  a  mangled  woman,  smothered  and  poisoned.  In  accord- 
ance with  our  well  known  principle  of  dream  analysis,  she 
herself  was  the  woman  experiencing  the  terrible  death. 
For  no  matter  what  the  stimuli  are,  the  dream  is  always  ego- 
centric; the  individual  himself  is  always  taken  as  the  psychic 
node  in  terms  of  which  all  the  stimuli  are  elaborated. 

She  continued  her  associations  thus :    "I  am  reminded  of 


250  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

an  incident  a  week  or  more  ago  when  our  neighbor  who  does 
chores  for  my  aunt  killed  a  large  Rhode  Island  red  cock 
for  our  Sunday  dinner.  It  was  left  in  the  kitchen  in  a  pail. 
I  soon  heard  the  colored  girl  calling  my  aunt,  'Miss  Fanny, 
that  rooster  ain't  dead!'  My  aunt  who  found  the  bird 
standing  up  and  out  of  the  pail  went  upstairs.  I  ran  down- 
stairs, trembling,  and  wrathy  at  her  for  leaving  it  in  that  con- 
dition, got  my  hatchet  and  finished  the  job.  The  cock's 
head  had  been  horribly  mangled  but  he  was  far  from  dead." 
Here  strictly  were  all  the  elements  of  the  scene  she  saw  in 
the  dream.  I  am  sure  you  must  see  by  this  time  how  in- 
significant the  manifest  content  of  the  dream  is  in  com- 
parison with  the  vast  network  of  past  associations,  feelings 
and  emotions  that  enter  into  the  latent  content.  You  may 
compare  the  manifest  dream  to  a  sunken  steamer,  you  see 
only  the  very  top  of  the  mast,  the  great  bulk  of  the  vessel 
is  submerged  and  it  is  only  when  you  begin  to  pull  at  it  that 
you  find  the  whole  mast. 

"The  Italian  boy,  John,  appeared  at  the  moment  when  I 
severed  the  cock's  head  and  observed:  'Miss  Fannie,  he's 
sufferin'.'  I  told  him  we  had  a  saying,  'To  jump  around  like 
a  hen  with  her  head  off!'  But  he  maintained  that  when  His 
father  killed  chickens,  they  were  stark  and  did  not  move. 

"This  reminded  me  of  my  drowning  the  young  cats  in 
Edgewater,  just  before  I  left  there."  I  would  like  you  to 
note  the  many  intimate  details  that  the  average  person  would 
deem  too  trifling  to  relate.  And  what  an  unheroic  figure 
the  person  often  presents!  There  is  something  ludicrous 
about  the  whole  situation :  here  is  this  young  woman  taking 
cascara  to  purge  her  stomach,  chopping  off  a  rooster's  head 
and  drowning  kittens.  What  mighty  deeds !  we  smile  to  our- 
selves. 

To  return  to  the  associations.  "These  incidents  always 
made  me  think  of  the  war  and  how  out  of  proportion  one's 


TYPES  OF  DREAMS  251 

distress  at  pain  seems  to  be  when  it  is  visible  and  when  one 
is  responsible  for  its  relief.  .  .  .  Now  I  think  of  the  de- 
scriptions of  mangled  soldiers  in  'Under  Fire/  of  the  wild 
girl  of  the  trenches  that  was  lost  and  accidentally  found, 
— a  putrid  corpse ;  now  of  Constance  Beverly  in  Marmion — 
hence  the  mitre,  because  she  was  executed  by  the  priests. 
The  turtle  mouth :  because  my  father  had  a  turtle  for  me  in 
a  wire  cage  in  the  brook  when  I  was  a  child.  During  a 
freshet  it  became  caught  in  the  wire  and  was  held  there  high 
and  dry  after  the  water  went  down.  We  did  not  visit  it  for 
a  number  of  days  and  then  my  father  released  it."  It  is  in- 
teresting to  note  the  many  and  different  elements  that  go  to 
make  up  the  picture  of  that  woman  in  the  dream.  We  say 
that  each  element  is  over  deter  mined,  or  nmnifoldly  de- 
termined; there  is  no  idea  that  is  not  determined  by  more 
than  one  association. 

But  to  continue:  "I  felt  my  father's  pity  for  the  poor 
animal  and  was  depressed  myself.  .  .  .  This  makes  me 
think  how  it  occurred  to  me  last  night  that  my  husband 
would  not  have  wakened  or  taken  trouble  for  the  kitten, — 
in  nine  cases  out  of  ten, — yet  I  remembered  that  in  the  tenth 
case  he  would  have  been  a  fine  hand  at  rescue  work.  .  .  . 

"The  girl  is  shut  up  as  I  felt  my  father  confined  me, — 
particularly  mentally.  .  .  .  My  female  companion  is  my 
other  self  or  the  female  in  me,  the  compassionate,  maternal 
part  of  me;  there  is  also  the  ideal  part  of  me  that  accom- 
plishes the  heroic  and  overcomes  horror  and  fear,  the  mascu- 
line in  me  that  is  victorious  in  the  dream.  My  only  comfort 
is  that  the  girl  is  dead,  and  suffering  and  distress  over.  .  .  . 

"I  am  now  thinking  of  the  conversation  I  had  with  my 
brother's  wife  who  recently  went  with  him  to  the  south.  I 
asked  her  if  our  family  there  seemed  to  be  expecting  to  go  on 
'peopling  the  woods  of  Tennessee.'  (I  have  had  three 
nephews  born  within  the  last  two  or  three  years).     She 


252  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

spoke  as  though  my  sister  and  sister-in-law  were  worrying 
because  they  feared  their  children  were  coming  too  close  to- 
gether. I  observed :  'Then  they  are  following  my  step- 
mother in  taking  them  as  an  unavoidable  dispensation  of 
providence.  Such  an  attitude  is  indeed  beyond  my  compre- 
hension.' "     V 

There  now  followed  a  discussion  of  birth  control.  .  .  . 
The  dreamer  spoke  of  the  difficulties  experienced  by  Mr.  A., 
her  married  stepbrother,  despite  all  the  precautions  that  he 
had  taken.  ...  "I  recall  his  wife's  labor  and  the  child's 
death, — ^the  miscarriage, — and  how  most  women  of  her  type 
feel  about  the  whole  affair. 

"And  what  would  I  do  if  I  became  pregnant  again,  if  I 
were  pregnant.  .  .  ."  Observe  how  personal  the  dream  is, 
how  it  always  returns  to  the  dreamer's  own  problems,  how 
the  situation  is  always  elaborated  in  terms  of  one's  self,  in 
terms  of  one's  own  inner  problems  and  conflicts.  "Is  it 
worth  while  to  run  even  the  shadow  of  a  risk  when  you  do 
not  want  children?  .  .  .  Probably  abstinence  is  best,  but  I 
for  one  become  so  torpid  or  so  nervous  when  I  practice  it 
long.  .  .  ."  The  meaning  of  the  dream  is  now  clear.  It 
represents  a  hidden  wish,  to  wit,  not  to  be  pregnant  or  in 
the  event  of  pregnancy  to  have  a  miscarriage. 

From  the  analysis  of  the  above  dreams,  we  may  see  how 
the  psychic  material  always  revolves  around  the  ego  and  is 
elaborated  in  terms  of  the  individual's  inner  strivings  and 
desires,  and  how  every  element  in  the  dream  is  overdeter- 
mined  or  manifoldly  determined. 


CHAPTER  X 
COMMON  FORMS  OF  INSANITY 

Thus  far  I  have  attempted  to  show  you  the  mechanisms  as 
we  find  them  first  in  the  normal  and  then  in  the  abnormal, 
or  more  definitely,  in  the  neurosis.  I  endeavored  to  make 
clear  how  we  apply  the  Freudian  psychology  to  every-day 
faulty  actions,  to  wit,  to  dreams,  to  neurotic  symptoms  and 
other  abnormal  conditions.  Beginning  with  this  hour  I  wish 
to  give  you  a  brief  survey  of  the  most  common  forms  of 
insanity. 

The  difference  between  a  nervous  disease  and  a  mental 
disease  is  very  marked ;  there  is  as  vast  a  difference  between 
them  as  there  is,  we  might  say,  between  an  Dementia 
ordinary  cold  and  tuberculosis.  An  insanity,  a  ^"Bco^t 
psychosis,  is  a  deep-reaching  mental  disturbance.  Without 
any  further  attempt  at  definition,  for  the  psychosis  is  very 
difficult  to  define,  we  may  consider  an  individual  insane 
whose  actions,  whose  general  behavior,  are  foreign  to  his  en- 
vironments. The  difference  between  a  nervous  condition 
and  an  insanity,  then,  should  be  sought  in  the  degree  and 
character  of  reaction  toward  the  environment. 

When  we  study  one  of  the  most  common  forms  of  in- 
sanity, dementia  prsecox,  we  find  that  it  represents  very 
definite  characteristics.  It  was  originally  called  by  that 
name  because  it  was  supposed  to  be  a  dementia  present  in 
young  people.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  neither  a  dementia 
nor  is  it  confined  always  to  young  people,  although  probably 
75  to  80  per  cent,  of  the  cases  are  between  sixteen  and  thirty. 

253 


254  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

It  was  also  designated  by  some  authors  as  a  mental  disease 
of  puberty,  for  it  manifests  itself  in  a  great  many  cases  at 
about  that  age.  We  may  define  the  disease  as  a  progressive, 
mental  disturbance,  its  main  characteristic  being  an  emo- 
tional deterioration. 

The  outstanding  characteristic  of  the  prsecox  is  his  com- 
plete indifference  to  the  outside  world.  Take,  for  instance, 
a  concrete  case, — that  of  a  high  school  girl  of  about  fifteen 
years  of  age.  According  to  the  history  given  to  me  by  the 
mother  she  was  perfectly  well  up  to  about  five  months  ago, 
when  she  became  "nervous :"  she  now  sits  around  in  the  house 
insouciant  and  listless,  does  not  care  to  dress,  takes  no  in- 
terest in  school  or  studies.  When  we  investigate  the  case 
more  closely  we  find  that  there  were  slight  manifestations  of 
the  disease  long  before  then,  but  that  it  was  only  since  five 
months  ago  that  the  parents  began  to  realize  that  the  girl 
was  not  just  lazy  but  actually  sick.  The  average  person  does 
not  realize  usually  the  gravity  of  the  condition  until  a  report 
comes  from  school  that  Miss  so-and-so  absolutely  neglects 
her  work  and  is  uninterested  and  indifferent.  But  it  is  a 
sure  sign  that  there  is  danger  ahead  when  a  girl  who  has 
been  apparently  well  suddenly  becomes  indifferent  to  the 
things  that  interest  the  average  young  woman  of  her  age. 
The  average  girl  likes  to  dress  well,  is  very  anxious  to  appear 
well  in  the  eyes  of  others,  feels  badly  when  she  does  not  get 
along  in  her  studies.  But  the  praecoxes  do  not  care  about 
these  things. 

When  the  prsecox  develops  into  the  full  condition  he 
presents  a  rather  typical  picture.  The  main  characteristic 
is,  as  I  said,  an  emotional  deterioration;  there  is  absolutely 
no  emotional  reaction.  One  of  the  diagnostic  points  that  I 
would  point  out  to  students  in  the  hospital  in  the  examina- 
tion of  such  patients  was  to  take  a  praecox  and  bid  him  put 
out  his  tongue,  when  I  would  get  a  long  pin  and  say  to  the 


COMMON  FORMS  OF  INSANITY  255 

students:  "Now  I  am  going  to  stick  this  through  the  pa- 
tient's tongue."  And  I  would  pretend  to  do  so.  Ordinarily, 
even  if  the  patient  thinks  that  I  am  only  joking,  he  with- 
draws his  tongue,  but  the  praecox  sits  quite  unconcerned, 
with  his  tongue  out.  Indeed  he  would  not  object  even  if  I 
were  actually  to  try  to  stick  the  pin  through  his  tongue. 
And  similarly,  light  a  match  and  thrust  it  before  his  eyes, 
and  he  will  sit  quiet  and  undisturbed,  whereas  any  other 
person  would  close  his  eyes  at  once.  You  can  singe  a 
preecox's  eyebrows  and  he  would  not  close  his  eyes.  One 
author  declares  that  you  can  shoot  a  cannon  near  him  and 
he  would  not  move.  He  is  absolutely  indifferent  to  the  out- 
side world. 

Originally  a  great  many  physicians  who  were  not  ac- 
quainted with  the  deeper  aspects  of  dementia  praecox  con- 
sidered it  a  masturbatic  insanity,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
there  are  doctors  to-day  who  still  consider  it  as  such.  I 
may  have  told  you  previously,  masturbation  docs  no  mental  or 
physical  harm.  It  is  a  very  common  practice  and  most  of 
the  authorities  who  have  investigated  the  subject  claim  that 
it  is  found  in  100  per  cent,  of  people.  In  the  case  of  the 
average  normal  boy  or  girl  the  act  is  performed  usually  under 
cover,  in  some  hiding  place.  But  when  the  young  person  be- 
comes indifferent  and  begins  to  develop  dementia  praecox,  he 
will  have  no  scruples  in  masturbating  anywheres,  with  the 
result  that  the  parents  often  catch  him  in  the  act.  They 
consider  it  a  vicious  habit  and  try  to  get  the  child  to  break  it. 
Then  probably  three  or  four  months  or  a  year  later  when 
they  are  actually  convinced  that  the  person  is  insane  they 
inform  the  doctor  that  they  know  only  too  well  the  cause  of 
his  condition:  "he  has  abused  himself."  But  this  is  far 
from  the  truth.  All  the  cases  that  I  have  observed  that  were 
presumably  due  to  masturbation  were  only  cases  of  dementia 
praecox.     From  the  very  outset,  there  was  a  marked  emo- 


256  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

tional  indifference,  the  feelings  were  dulled,  and  the  patient 
would  masturbate  quite  openly  whenever  the  impulse  moved 
him.  It  is  because  of  this  accidental  relation  between 
masturbation  and  dementia  prsscox  that  some  old  psychia- 
trists have  described  the  disease  as  a  form  of  masturbational 
insanity.    There  is  no  such  disease. 

Another  characteristic  of  the  prsecox  is  that  he  pays  no 
attention  to  any  one;  he  absolutely  refuses  to  do  what  you 
tell  him,  and  if  he  does  carry  out  what  he  was  bidden  to,  he 
does  so  in  a  mechanical  way.  His  handshake  is  another 
diagnostic  point  in  these  cases.  The  average  person  who 
takes  and  gives  emotions  freely  gives  you  a  healthy  hand- 
shake, you  feel  that  he  is  transmitting  his  feelings.  If  a 
dementia  prsecox  is  finally  moved  to  give  his  hand,  he  does  so 
mechanically,  he  extends  it  stiffly,  barely  touching  the  prof- 
fered hand. 

In  the  advanced  stage  of  the  disease  such  patients  sit  in 
one  place  for  weeks  and  months.  I  have  observed  some  of 
them  for  as  many  as  four  or  five  years,  every  day  they 
would  resume  their  usual  position  and  remain  there,  going 
through  the  same  mannerisms.  I  have  seen  a  man  incessant- 
ly rub  the  top  of  his  head,  as  he  walked  the  floor,  until  he  de- 
veloped a  very  prominent  tonsure  there.  Others  will  go 
about  and  use  what  we  call  "verbigerations,"  stereotyped  ex- 
pressions. They  may  start  with  a  phrase  such  as  "I  don't 
want  to  do  it,"  and  continue  to  repeat  it  without  end.  When 
they  do  this  every  day  for  a  year  there  are  gradual  elisions 
and  only  the  person  who  had  heard  them  first  begin  it  can 
know  what  they  are  talking  about.  The  same  psychic  proc- 
ess is  seen  not  only  in  speech  manifestations,  but  in  various 
movements  and  actions,  such  as  peculiarities  in  gait,  writing, 
etc.  Then,  too,  some  of  them  show  what  we  already  re- 
ferred to  in  another  connection  as  "catatonic"  character- 
istics, they  assume  rigid  attitudes.     I  have  seen  a  patient  of 


COMMON  FORMS  OF  INSANITY  257 

this  type  imitate  the  cross,  standing  in  the  same  position  and 
staring  at  the  sun  for  hours  and  hours  until  he  was  forced 
in  for  fear  of  sun-stroke.  In  a  similar  manner  they  react 
toward  food  and  other  necessities  of  life.  They  gobble 
their  food  down  as  though  they  were  starved  to  death ;  very 
often  they  take  such  big  chunks  that  they  choke  to  death. 
I  have  been  called  in  a  number  of  times  to  save  such  a  patient 
from  suffocation,  but  sometimes  the  physician  arrives  too 
late  to  save  him.  That  is  why  in  every  dining-room  in  the 
insane  asylum  there  are  instruments  always  ready  for  just 
such  an  emergency. 

The  patients  also  have  certain  hallucinations  and  delusions 
by  which  they  are  constantly  controlled.  When  we  delve 
into  their  lives  we  find  that  these  delusions  and  hallucinations 
are  by  no  means  as  senseless  and  meaningless  as  the  average 
person  would  suppose,  that  there  is  a  cause  for  them.  We 
find  that  the  patient  is  living  in  a  world  of  his  own,  experi- 
encing over  and  over  again  some  episode,  living  through 
some  wish  in  a  delusionary  way.  To  get  him  out  of  himself 
for  a  little  while,  to  gain  entry  into  his  little  isolated  world 
requires  untold  strength  and  endless  patience. 

When  I  was  in  the  hospital  for  the  insane  at  Zurich  I 
observed  the  case  of  an  American  girl,  born  in  Kentucky, 
who  had  been  an  inmate  in  the  asylum  for  years.  She  had 
to  be  kept  in  bed  because  she  would  not  keep  herself  clean. 
She  would  sit  there  in  bed  the  live-long  day  with  her  head 
buried  between  her  knees,  her  eyes  closed,  in  a  peculiarly 
rigid  attitude.  She  had  never  talked  since  she  came  to  the 
hospital.  Occasionally  she  would  say  something  quite  un- 
expectedly but  no  one  could  find  out  what  she  was  talking 
about.  Professor  Bleuler  informed  me  of  a  patient  whom 
he  had  had  of  that  type,  a  catatonic  dementia  praecox.  He 
decided  once  to  see  to  what  extent  he  could  influence  her  to 
dress  and  get  out  of  bed  without  resorting  to  force;  he 


258  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

wished  to  see  to  what  extent  suggestion  could  be  utilized 
on  her.  To  the  average  sane  person  suggestions  can  be 
readily  made,  but  these  patients  are  shut-in  and  practically 
inaccessible.  Professor  Bleuler  told  me  that  he  talked  to  the 
patient  for  hours  at  end  before  she  dressed  and  went  where 
he  desired.  I  decided  to  perform  the  same  experiment  upon 
this  woman.  I  went  into  the  ward  one  afternoon  and  talked 
until  I  was  proverbially  blue  in  the  face.  She  finally  looked 
up  and  I  felt  highly  rewarded  considering  that  she  had  not 
done  that  for  years.  I  said  to  her:  "Aren't  you  ashamed 
of  yourself  lying  around  like  that?  Dress  and  Fll  take  you 
for  a  walk."  I  had  her  dressed,  brought  to  my  office,  and 
for  two  full  days  she  behaved  Hke  any  normal  person.  She 
revealed  to  me  her  whole  story.  I  found  that  she  was  ex- 
periencing symbolically  an  episode  that  occurred  at  her  home 
in  Kentucky.  From  what  I  gathered,  it  would  seem  that  she 
was  reproducing  a  seduction.  She  imagined  that  the  young 
man  was  there  with  her  in  the  hospital,  talking  to  her  all  the 
time,  while  she  just  listened.  She  talked  nicely  to  me  and 
behaved  in  a  perfectly  normal  way.  But  I  had  enough  ex- 
perience by  that  time  to  know  that  it  was  too  good  to  last. 
On  the  third  day,  as  I  was  anxiously  waiting  for  her  to  be 
brought  in,  I  received  a  telephone  to  the  effect  that  my  pa- 
tient had  relapsed  into  her  old  condition,  that  she  was  faring 
Just  as  badly  as  ever.  I  dare  say  if  I  had  sufficient  physical 
endurance  to  perform  the  experiment  again,  I  might  have 
aroused  her  again  for  a  while. 

Any  marked  emotional  affect  always  tends  to  arouse  such 
patients  from  their  congealed  state,  to  make  them  forget,  as 
it  were.  We  see  this  when  they  are  operated.  I  observed 
a  patient  of  this  type  in  the  Central  Islip  State  Hospital  who 
did  not  talk  for  almost  five  or  six  years.  For  two  and  a 
half  years  I  had  to  feed  him  by  means  of  a  tube  through  the 
nostril,  for  he  refused  to  eat.     He  looked  cadaverous  and 


COMMON  FORMS  OF  INSANITY  259 

yellow,  veritably  like  wax.  One  day  we  examined  him  and 
found  that  he  was  suffering  from  an  internal  inflammatory 
condition;  we  felt  that  it  was  advisable  to  operate.  I  ad- 
ministered the  anaesthetic,  and  it  was  passing  strange  to  hear 
him  plead  with  me  not  to  operate.  To  say  the  least  I  was  quite 
pleased  to  hear  his  voice.  When  he  came  to  himself  from 
the  ether,  he  behaved  like  any  sane  person  in  a  general 
hospital,  he  asked  me  how  he  was,  what  his  temperature  was, 
etc.  I  remember  going  into  the  dining  room  and  imparting 
the  interesting  news  to  some  of  my  colleagues.  "So  and  so 
is  normal  now."  They  looked  at  me  in  blank  wonder.  "He 
is  normal  like  any  one  else,"  I  repeated.  They  talked  to 
him  and  normal  indeed  he  was.  "Look  here,  why  did  you 
act  like  a  crazy  fellow  and  give  me  all  that  trouble  of  feeding 
you — it  is  a  disagreeable  business,"  I  said  to  him.  He  did 
not  answer;  he  smiled.  For  three  weeks  he  was  in  bed,  re- 
covering from  the  operation.  I  informed  him  that  I  would 
soon  send  him  home,  and  he  was  pleased.  But  one  morning 
I  came  and,  to  my  profound  disappointment  found  him  there 
in  the  same  old  place,  in  the  same  posture,  with  his  head 
down, — the  same  old  inaccessible  praecox.  It  was  as  though 
the  few  weeks  were  completely  wiped  out  of  his  life.  I 
have  seen  a  number  of  such  cases  in  which  an  affect  made 
the  patient  react.  In  this  particular  case,  the  fear  of  death 
and  the  will  to  live  made  him  forget  his  abnormal  world. 
The  moment,  however,  he  felt  well  again,  he  withdrew  into 
his  old  little  world  and  would  not  come  out. 

Patients  of  this  character  are  absolutely  shut-in  and  their 
history  reveals  that  they  are  always  more  or  less  so,  they 
never  mixed  well  with  their  fellows,  they  never  showed  any 
deep  emotional  rapport.  There  are  many  cases  of  the  same 
type,  though  of  course  by  no  means  as  pronounced,  who 
show  bizarre  expressions,  who  act  peculiarly.  No  one  can 
understand  them,  they  are  generally  considered  crazy.     They 


26o  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

are  of  the  dementia  praecox  type,  but  not  fully  developed. 
They  may  have  an  episode  which  clears  up  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent; its  remnants  remain,  however,  and  continue  to  mani- 
fest themselves  in  the  person's  behavior.  I  know  the  case  of 
a  man,  for  instance,  who  as  a  boy  was  extremely  precocious. 
He  was  far  ahead  of  his  class,  he  performed  many  an  un- 
usual feat.  But  the  teachers  were  often  surprised  when  of 
a  sudden  he  would  get  up  in  the  class  and  say  something  that 
no  one  understood.  At  the  age  of  thirteen  he  left  home  and 
joined  a  troop  of  actors  in  England.  Great  things  were  pre- 
dicted for  him  on  the  stage,  but  after  a  while,  he  ran  off, 
tramped  about  for  some  time  and  then  came  to  the  United 
States  where  he  worked  at  all  sorts  of  jobs.  Suddenly,  he 
disappeared.  One  day  when  in  a  cafe,  while  discussing  the 
subject  of  bravery  and  courage,  some  one  remarked  that  "to 
commit  suicide  requires  the  higher  form  of  cowardice."  He 
vehemently  denied  that,  and  to  prove  his  point  shot  himself 
in  the  head.  He  was  taken  to  a  hospital  where  he  recovered. 
If  I  were  to  describe  to  you  all  that  he  had  experienced  by 
the  time  I  saw  him  at  twenty-eight,  we  would  have  a 
veritable  Odyssey.  But  he  never  had  any  direct  delusions, 
he  had  merely  fleeting  hallucinations  and  delusions  upon 
which  he  acted  rapidly.  There  is  no  question  about  his  being 
a  rather  mild  type  of  dementia  prsecox,  mild  in  the  sense  of 
the  depth  of  the  symptoms. 

The  average  case  of  dementia  praecox  dements,  the  patient 
forms  his  system  and  then  settles  down.  Mr.  N.'s  case  is 
typical.  He  had  been  ill  for  six  to  eight  years ;  he  was  very 
hallucinatory  and  delusionary.  He  would  leave  his  home 
and  settle  down  for  a  time  in  some  out  of  town  hotel.  I 
first  saw  him  out  in  a  southern  city,  I  went  over  to  him  and 
called  him  by  his  name.  He  did  not  so  much  as  glance  at 
me,  despite  the  unusual  circumstance  of  hearing  his  name 
called  in  a  totally  strange  city.     I  had  to  convince  the  doctors 


COMMON  FORMS  OF  INSANITY  261- 

there  that  the  man  was  insane.  I  asked  one  of  them  to 
bump  into  him  to  see  what  he  would  do.  The  doctor  was 
afraid  to  take  the  risk,  for  the  patient  was  quite  a  husky 
fellow,  and  so  I  bumped  into  him  myself.  The  man  did 
not  say  a  word,  he  walked  on  without  paying  me  the  slightest 
attention.  The  doctors  could  not  understand  how  a  man 
could  stay  there  in  a  hotel  for  years,  pay  for  his  board  and 
room  regularly,  and  still  be  insane.  But  the  hotel  keeper 
declared  that  he  saw  all  the  while  that  there  was  something 
peculiar  about  the  man:  he  would  stay  in  his  room  practi- 
cally all  the  time,  wore  the  same  suit  all  the  time,  the  same 
hat,  the  same  pair  of  shoes,  came  down  to  eat  promptly  at  a 
certain  time,  and  was  most  methodical  in  his  habits.  Such 
patients  are  orderly  and  regular  to  a  point  of  nausea. 
Methodicalness  is  not  necessarily  a  sign  of  dementia  praecox, 
but  we  may  well  think  of  the  disease  when  we  see  people 
who  are  so  extremely  methodical. 

The  next  group  of  insanity  with  which  I  wish  to  acquaint 
you,  the  manic  depressive  group,  is  very  widespread.     It  is 
designated  by  that  name  because,  as  we  have  ^^^^ 
already  said,  on  a  previous  occasion,  it  runs  in   Depressive 

-'  '^  .  .  Insanity 

certain  phases  or  cycles.  Sometimes  the  patient 
is  excited,  exhilarated,  restless,  manic,  and  sometimes  he  is 
melancholy,  retarded  in  thought  and  action, — depressed. 
Suddenly  a  wave  of  excitement  lasting  a  few  days,  weeks, 
or  months,  usually  two  to  six  months,  will  come  over  the 
patient:  the  emotions  run  up  and  gradually  down  and  re- 
main normal  for  a  period.  There  then  may  follow  another 
similar  wave.  If  you  take  the  patient's  history  you  will  find 
that  during  a  life  of  twenty  to  thirty  years  he  may  have  had 
fifteen  attacks  or  more.  Sometimes  this  attack  of  excite- 
ment is  followed  by  an  attack  of  depression ;  the  emotions  go 
down,  the  patient  feels  downcast  and  depressed.     Some  pa- 


262  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

tients  run  a  different  course.  They  may  just  begin  with  a 
depression,  get  over  it  and  be  a  little  exalted,  just  enough  to 
feel  well  and  exhilarated  without  being  regarded  as  in  any 
way  abnormal,  and  they  are  perfectly  well.  Then  probably 
a  few  years  later  there  comes  another  depression,  and  so  the 
case  continues.  When  our  knowledge  of  this  group  of  insan- 
ity was  rather  slight,  we  designated  this  phase  of  the  disease 
as  a  separate  case.  This  state  of  depression  and  retardation 
was  designated  as  melancholia,  which  literally  means  "black 
bile."  The  term  came  from  the  old  Greeks  who  thought 
that  a  person  who  was  depressed  had  liver  trouble  and  that 
when  he  was  purged,  he  became  well.  It  is  for  this  reason 
that  physicians  have  used  purging  for  such  cases.  This  idea 
is  almost  entirely  disregarded  now. 

One  very  serious  danger  in  this  phase  of  the  disease,  that 
is,  in  the  depressive  state,  is  that  the  patient  may  commit 
suicide.  You  will  often  read  in  the  newspapers  of  a  nervous 
breakdown  followed  by  suicide ;  we  are  undoubtedly  dealing 
here  with  a  case  of  the  depressive  type  of  manic  depressive 
insanity,  for  there  are  few  other  forms  of  mental  disturb- 
ances that  terminate  in  suicide.  I  do  not  think  I  am  exag- 
gerating when  I  assert  that  probably  85  to  90  per  cent,  of  all 
suicides  belong  to  the  depressive  type  of  this  disease. 

There  are  serious  dangers  also  in  the  manic  state  of  the 
disease.  When  the  attack  comes  in  a  very  mild  form,  that 
is,  when  the  patient  is  just  a  little  exhilarated  and  feels  like 
one  who  has  had  a  drink  or  two,  he  is  liable  to  jump  into  all 
sorts  of  reckless  ventures.  I  have  seen  women  who  married 
during  such  a  state  and  were  deeply  disappointed  when 
they  became  normal  once  more.  I  am  convinced  that  many 
cases  of  marital  unhappiness  are  due  just  to  this  fact,  one 
or  the  other  of  the  couple  was  in  such  an  abnormal  state  at  the 
time  of  marriage ;  when  things  subsided  and  became  normal, 


COMMON  FORMS  OF  INSANITY  263 

there  was  a  mental  upset,  husband  and  wife  could  not  agree. 
It  is  like  marrying  when  in  a  state  of  intoxication ;  unless  you 
can  continue  drinking,  matters  cannot  fare  well.  I  might 
inform  you  that  I  have  actually  testified  in  one  such  case 
where  the  marriage  was  annulled  on  the  ground  that  the 
man  had  had  a  number  of  manic  attacks  previous  to  the  mar- 
riage, and  we  could  say  with  more  than  a  certain  amount  of 
probability  that  he  was  suffering  from  an  attack  at  the  time 
he  married. 

Another  danger  in  this  phase  of  the  disease  is  that  of  ex- 
haustion. In  the  extreme  cases  of  excitement,  the  patient  is 
constantly  active;  it  is  necessary  to  give  him  the  strongest 
kind  of  medications  and  sedatives  to  keep  him  quiet.  If  he 
is  not  confined,  he  very  often  continues  to  talk  and  move 
about  so  recklessly  and  vehemently  that  he  simply  develops 
some  intercurrent  disease  and  dies.  It  is  remarkable  how 
many  of  these  cases  are  at  large  and  taken  for  alcoholics, 
I  have  met  them  on  the  streets  and  in  parks  and  on  a  few 
occasions  have  had  them  taken  to  the  hospital.  The  casual 
onlooker  observes  them  perform  to  his  delight  and  amuse- 
ment and  regards  them  as  alcoholics,  but  the  trained  observer 
usually  can  make  the  diagnosis  in  a  minute  or  two. 

The  essential  difference  between  the  manic-depressive 
cases  and  dementia  praecox  is  that  the  manic-depressive  pa- 
tient always  recovers  under  general  conditions  and  never 
shows  any  mental  scar ;  there  is  no  intellectual  disturbance. 
That  is  why  a  great  many  physicians  would  not  designate  the 
manic-depressive  patient  as  a  case  of  insanity,  unless  of 
course  he  is  extreme  and  delusional;  they  regard  the 
disease  as  merely  an  emotional  disturbance.  But  when  the 
dementia  praecox  seemingly  recovers  from  the  first  episode, 
he  always  shows  to  the  trained  observer  the  dementia  prsecox 
reaction,  there  is  always  left  a  mental  scar. 


264  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

There  is  one  more  form  of  insanity  that  I  wish  to  touch 
upon,  namely,  paranoia.  This  is  a  chronic,  progressive  form 
Paranoia  of  insanity  which  is  absolutely  incurable.  When 
you  examine  a  paranoiac  thoroughly  you  find  that  he  always 
presented  more  or  less  definite  characteristics,  he  always 
showed  the  type  of  mental  make-up  associated  with  the 
disease.  But  we  usually  do  not  see  anything  abnormal  or 
maladjusted  in  his  mode  of  reaction  until  he  is  thrown  on 
his  own  resources  or,  generally  speaking,  until  he  has  to 
come  in  actual  contact  with  the  environment.  At  the  age 
of  puberty  we  already  begin  to  notice  certain  distinct  pe- 
culiarities. First  of  all,  the  patient  is  a  sort  of  quiet,  re- 
served personality,  an  individual  who  takes  no  interest  in 
the  trivialities  of  life.  The  history  from  childhood  shows 
that  he  never  played  like  others,  never  made  friends  like 
others.  He  may  have  had  perhaps  some  acquaintances  but 
never  a  friend  in  whom  he  confided.  The  normal  person  is 
always  drawn  to  some  one  in  whom  he  can  confide.  Con- 
sciously or  unconsciously  he  realizes  that  it  is  unhealthy  to 
harbor  secrets,  for  every  secret  contains  something  wrong 
or  forbidden.  But  the  paranoiac  has  never  formed  any 
lasting  intimate  friendship,  he  has  never  learned  how  to  give 
and  take  emotions  freely.  He  starts  out  in  life  with  that  all- 
too-serious  attitude;  the  elem.ent  of  love  which  manifests 
itself  in  childhood  in  play  and  later  on  in  friendship  and  sex 
either  is  not  developed  with  him,  or  its  normal  development  is 
retarded  and  it  is  turned  inward  upon  himself.  Upon  reach- 
ing the  period  of  puberty,  therefore,  when  an  emotional  outlet 
is  absolutely  necessary,  he  finds  himself  in  a  critical  position: 
an  emotional  wave  of  puberty  comes  on,  and  unable  to  place 
it  properly,  he  begins  to  find  fault  with  the  environment. 
The  young  man  may  feel  that  he  has  not  received  the  amount 
of  attention  or  friendship  that  is  properly  due  him.  The 
young  lady  may  complain  that  people  are  constantly  pointing 


COMMON  FORMS  OF  INSANITY  265 

at  her  in  an  insinuating  way,  or  that  she  has  been  slighted 
in  some  way.  The  situation  usually  resolves  itself  into  this : 
"people  do  not  like  me."  Of  course,  emotions  beget 
emotions,  if  you  do  not  like  others,  others  will  not  like  you, 
if  you  want  friends,  you  must  show  friendship.  Emerson 
has  put  it  very  well :  "Love  and  you  shall  be  loved."  The 
world  is  so  full  of  people  that  no  one  will  worry  about  an 
individual  who  does  not  come  forward  himself.  The  para- 
noiac projects  his  own  feelings  to  the  outside  world,  and  by 
an  all  too  natural  mode  of  reasoning,  he  finds  that  the  fault 
lies  not  with  him  but  with  the  outside  world:  "People  do 
not  like  me" — and  since  no  one  likes  to  depreciate  himself, 
the  logical  explanation  at  once  suggests  itself, — "because  I  am 
better  than  they  are,  therefore  they  do  not  like  me."  As  a 
matter  of  fact  that  may  be  sometimes  true,  the  person  may 
be  in  a  certain  respect  better  than  the  people  in  his  environ- 
ment. 

And  so  when  the  paranoiac  reaches  an  age  when  he  would 
like  to  compete,  he  feels  himself  too  weak  or  too  worthy  to 
do  so  and  the  result  is  that  he  is  left  to  himself,  his  morbid 
ideas  developing  all  the  while  more  and  more.  Gradually 
he  begins  to  elaborate  who  he  is,  he  cannot  admit,  for  in- 
stance, that  he  belongs  to  an  ordinary  plebeian  family,  he  de- 
cides that  he  must  be  of  better  stock.  Not  long  ago  I  ob- 
served a  typical  paranoiac;  he  imagined  that  he  was  an  il- 
legitimate son  of  Louis  XIV.  His  life  history  was  ex- 
tremely interesting.  His  father  was  about  thirty  years 
older  than  his  mother,  so  that  when  the  patient  was  a  little 
boy  the  father  was  an  old  man.  The  normal  relationship, 
then,  such  as  one  finds  between  father  and  son  was  here  im- 
possible, the  discrepancy  in  age  was  too  great.  That  is  why 
the  boy  never  developed  a  normal  association  with  his  com- 
panions. Besides,  the  father  was  unusually  attached  to  the 
child  and  insisted  on  having  the  boy  with  him  all  the  time. 


266  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Thus  the  patient  grew  up  to  be  a  morbid,  introspective  boy, 
and  as  he  grew  older,  he  gradually  developed  and  elaborated 
his  delusional  system. 

Paranoia  turns  out  to  reproduce  a  primitive  condition,  the 
individual,  one  might  say,  regresses  to  an  atavistic  state 
where  he  believes  that  no  one  is  his  friend.  When  we  lived 
in  caves,  when  we  were  Troglodytes,  the  human  being  would 
not  dare  to  put  out  his  head  for  fear  lest  his  neighbors  would 
kill  him;  like  animals,  everybody  worked  exclusively  for 
himself,  there  was  nothing  in  common,  there  was  no  sense 
of  mutual  interest.  Gradually  with  the  advance  of  civiliza- 
tion not  only  did  we  make  peace  with  the  inhabitants  of  the 
neighboring  cave,  but  we  got  out  of  caves  altogether  and 
began  to  build  houses.  Now  we  can  even  sleep  with  our 
windows  open  and  there  is  no  danger.  In  other  words,  we 
are  departing  from  all  those  conditions  which  existed  in  the 
most  primordial  state.  It  is  therefore  important  to  free  the 
child's  development  of  all  such  primitive  tendencies  and  teach 
him  to  give  and  take  emotions  freely,  for  otherwise  he  is 
likely  either  to  continue  in  a  primitive  state  or  not  know 
how  to  place  his  emotions  properly  and  become  neurotic. 

The  outstanding  mechanisms  in  the  paranoiac  are  these : 
First,  delusions  of  reference,  by  which  we  mean,  falsely  con- 
struing whatever  occurs  in  his  environment  to  refer  to  his 
own  person.  Talk  with  some  one,  it  matters  not  about 
what,  for  example,  and  the  paranoiac  will  insist  that  you 
are  talking  about  him.  He  may  hear  a  sermon  in  church  and 
straightway  refer  it  to  himself  by  proving  that  the  minister 
quoted  a  certain  passage  from  the  Bible  with  which  he  was 
only  too  well  familiar.  In  time  he  begins  to  develop  perse^ 
cutory  ideas,  he  begins  to  think  that  people  are  against  him. 
Usually  he  chooses  for  his  target  some  intimate  person  in  the 
family.  When  he  fixes  on  some  one,  when  he  actually 
finds  a  person  whom  he  likes  very  much,  the  attachment 


COMMON  FORMS  OF  INSANITY  267 

usually  takes  a  most  violent  course  for  a  while,  when  a 
violent  process  of  disillusionment  sets  in:  the  new-found 
friend  then  becomes  a  traitor  and  is  usually  taken  as  the 
arch  conspirator.  Gradually  the  circle  widens  and  widens, 
the  conspiracy  becomes  more  and  more  involved,  at  first, 
it  may  be  only  a  brother-in-law  or  a  classmate,  later  it  is 
the  whole  world  that  is  his  enemy.  It  is  remarkable  how 
people  of  this  type  rationalize  a  situation.  Ask  one  of  them 
why  he  knows  that  detectives  were  following  him  from  New 
York  to  Washington,  and  he  declares :  "When  I  registered, 
the  clerk  remarked  to  another  clerk,  'Here  he  is.' "  That 
was  proof  sufficient.  I  have  seen  a  man  who  actually  went 
around  the  world :  he  maintained  that  wherever  he  came,  he 
saw  detectives  at  his  heels,  heard  voices  and  saw  people 
watching  him.  Finally  he  decided  to  return  to  New  York 
to  give  himself  up.  He  did  so,  and  was  sent  to  the  asylum. 
It  took  me  a  few  days  to  take  down  his  history.  Only  a 
paranoiac  could  have  gone  through  all  the  privations  that  he 
had  experienced.  In  the  course  of  time  the  patient  begins 
to  reason  why  he  is  persecuted,  he  begins  to  elaborate  just 
who  he  is.  And  when  he  finally  becomes  convinced  that  he 
is  an  emperor,  or  some  other  great  personality  he  does  not 
fail  to  act  like  one.  If  he  believes  himself  to  be  Christ  or  a 
savior  of  some  kind,  he  plays  the  appropriate  role.  To  the 
average  observer  his  reasoning  is  most  bizarre,  sometimes 
though,  it  is  very  ingenious. 

There  are  all  kinds  of  paranoiacs.  The  original  ones  are, 
of  course,  rare ;  by  those  I  mean  the  patients  whom  you  have 
to  observe  and  study  for  a  long  time  before  you  can  actually 
decide  that  they  are  insane.  They  are  often  too  clever  to 
betray  themselves ;  they  realize  that  they  are  being  examined 
and  are  very  guarded.  You  have  to  be  equally  clever  to  get 
at  the  proof,  you  have  to  hit  the  right  moment  to  find  the  clue 
to  the  system.     It  is  remarkable  how  many  paranoiacs  are 


268  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

taken  to  court  on  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus  and  discharged  as 
sane.  In  one  hospital  for  the  insane  that  I  visited  last  fall, 
it  was  interesting  to  observe  that  practically  every  one  of  the 
inmates  had  a  legal  paper  drawn  in  accordance  with  the  legal 
form,  applying  for  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus.  Many  of  the 
patients  thus  discharged  later  commit  crimes  and  homicide. 
They  are  so  clever  that  they  often  elude  the  average  judge 
or  jury;  no  one  but  an  expert  in  mental  diseases  can  see 
that  they  are  insane.  Thus,  I  had  an  interesting  experience 
with  a  classmate  of  mine,  a  man  of  the  typical  paranoid 
character  as  I  described  it,  a  typical  shut-in  personality. 
When  he  was  taken  out  on  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus  his 
mother,  wife,  brothers,  principal  of  the  school  where  he  used 
to  teach  testified  that  he  was  very  insane.  No  one  had  any 
interest  whatsoever  in  keeping  him  in  the  asylum.  His  own 
relatives  and  friends,  and  at  least  half  a  dozen  teachers  from 
his  school,  who  were  all  sorry  for  him,  all  testified  to  his 
peculiar  actions.  After  a  trial  lasting  ten  days  the  jury  was 
out  about  ten  minutes  and  brought  in  a  verdict  that  the 
patient  was  sane.  To  a  jury  of  laymen,  the  man's  defense 
seemed  altogether  plausible,  and  yet  the  patient  was  absolute- 
ly insane.  The  man  was  released  and  he  might  have  killed 
many  people  and  caused  irreparable  harm  during  the  in- 
terval that  elapsed  between  his  discharge  and  his  final  com- 
mitment to  the  insane  asylum. 

When  a  case  of  this  character  reaches  the  newspapers,  it 
is  often  held  up  to  the  public  as  a  very  fine  example  of  how 
doctors  kept  an  absolutely  sane  person  in  the  asylum.  We 
have  seen  a  recent  example  of  this  deplorable  condition  in 
the  case  of  the  B.  sisters.  These  two  women  are  just  as 
crazy  as  any  two  inmates  of  any  State  Hospital.  They 
represent  what  we  call  a  "folies  a  deux,"  a  form  of  in- 
sanity which  affects  two  people  in  the  same  family;  some- 
times I  have  seen  it  afifect  three  people.     It  is  significant 


COMMON  FORMS  OF  INSANITY  269 

that  though  these  sisters  were  discharged  as  insane  to 
the  custody  of  some  one  under  bond,  the  newspapers 
vociferously  continued  to  protest  that  here  were  two  sisters 
who  were  kept  in  the  asylum  despite  the  fact  that  they  were 
not  insane.  The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  the  state  hospitals 
are  overcrowded ;  they  have  25  per  cent,  more  patients  than 
they  can  accommodate ;  they  are  only  too  pleased  to  be  able 
to  discharge  patients.  The  State  Hospital  in  question  at 
that  very  time  actually  had  a  campaign  requesting  relatives 
and  friends  to  relieve  them  of  those  patients  whom  they  con- 
sidered well  enough  to  get  along  at  home.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  doctors  are  in  duty  bound  not  to  discharge  patients 
who  are  considered  dangerous ;  how  can  they  discharge  pa- 
tients who  are  distinctly  anti-social,  who  feel  that  the  whole 
world  is  conspiring  against  them?  As  for  those  folk  that 
imagine  that  doctors  take  malicious  pleasure  in  keeping  people 
in  the  insane  asylum  or  profit  by  the  patient's  confinement, 
they  should  be  reminded  that  the  physician  receives  a  stipu- 
lated salary  whether  he  has  one  patient  or  fifty,  and  that  far 
from  taking  pleasure  in  keeping  him  confined,  it  is  in  his  in- 
terest to  see  him  discharged.  In  the  old  days  there  was  the 
prevailing  notion  that  the  patients  were  killed  or  poisoned  in 
the  asylum ;  to-day  we  are  doing  our  utmost  to  have  the  lay 
world  realize  that  the  insane  are  regarded  and  treated  as 
sick  people,  to  be  discharged  as  soon  as  they  are  well. 
Another  difficulty  is  that  the  lay  person  usually  considers  a 
person  insane  only  when  he  stands  on  his  head  and  yells  non- 
sense; he  considers  him  perfectly  normal  if  he  answers  ques- 
tions and  talks  more  or  less  connectedly  and  intelligently,  as 
for  instance,  in  cases  of  paranoia.  We  have  been  trying  for 
years  to  have  the  lay  public  realize  the  true  facts  of  the 
matter.  But  when  a  case  such  as  that  of  the  B.  sisters 
is  read  in  the  newspapers,  all  the  old  stupid  prejudices  are 
revived  once  more.     Untold  harm  is  done  thereby. 


270  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Before  leaving  the  subject  of  paranoia  I  wish  to  read  to 
you  parts  of  the  history  of  a  paranoiac.  I  am  sure  that  it 
ought  to  prove  instructive  for,  in  the  first  place,  it  will  show 
you  more  or  less  concretely  the  progress  of  the  disease,  how 
the  patient  gradually  becomes  more  and  more  detached  from 
reality,  and  secondly,  what  an  important  part  the  sex  element 
plays  in  all  such  mental  disturbances,  the  patient's  history 
showing  a  distinct  maladjustment  in  his  love  afifair.  The 
patient  is  a  man  36  years  of  age,  who  at  my  request  wrote 
out  the  history  himself. 

"Bringing  up  strict,  with  religious  atmosphere,  not  al- 
lowed to  play  with  other  children.  Were  of  a  somewhat 
'sissy  type,'  but  fairly  good  scholars.  Father  not  at  all 
nervous,  but  religious  and  rather  strict.  Mother  extremely 
nervous.  Favors  one  twin,  not  myself,  possibly  because  she 
is  interested  in  medicine,  and  he  wants  to  become  a  doctor. 

"First  vivid  impression,  quite  young,  four  or  five  years, 
used  to  undress  after  bathing  with  brother  and  sister 
two  years  older.  Sneaking  curiosity  as  to  secondary  sexual 
characteristics  of  sister,  looking  at  her  with  pleasure,  when 
unperceived.  Remember  remark  of  aunt  to  my  mother,  'too 
old  to  dress  in  same  room  together  with  sister.'  This  roused 
a  sense  of  guilt  as  to  sex,  which  is  still  subconsciously  re- 
tained. My  brother  remembers  also  an  experience  in  the 
bathroom  with  my  sister,  each  one  of  the  three  showing 
parts  to  other.  At  the  age  of  six  or  seven  vivid  remembrance 
of  homosexual  experience.  About  this  time  experience  with 
the  genital,  it  had  to  be  treated." 

He  then  cites  a  number  of  experiences.  He  dwells  at 
length  on  his  homosexuality  which  he  practiced  with  his 
brother  and  which  consisted  simply  in  masturbation.  He 
says: 

"We  kept  that  up  until  six  or  eight  years  of  age,  when 
we  realized  its  import.     I  remember  arguing  with  myself 


COMMON  FORMS  OF  INSANITY  271 

'This  cannot  be  wrong,  because  it  gives  pleasure  without  pain 
or  wrong  consequences.'  Later  the  practice  was  stopped 
and  I  found  an  intense  nervous  reaction  in  looking  through 
cracks  of  doors  at  my  sister  undressing.  At  school  had 
faint  'crushes'  on  boys.  At  college  had  a  'crush'  on  a  man 
two  years  ahead.  No  sex  impressions,  but  a  desire  to  be  of 
some  service  to  him,  liked  to  be  near  him." 

Here  he  gives  a  great  many  experiences  of  that  type  at 
the  age  of  22  or  23  years.  Speaking  about  women  he  says, 
"Have  only  been  in  love  once.  The  girl  was  a  friend  of  my 
sister's,  my  older  sister,  the  one  now  in  a  sanitarium.  This 
sister  had  'crushes'  on  girl  friends  and  teachers,  it  ended  in 
an  infatuation,  abnormal  girl,  subjects  to  attack  of  insanity. 
This  girl  friend  has  since  married  and  has  children.  She 
was  normal,  but  had  led  a  rather  repressed  sex  life,  she  was 
a  'nice'  girl.  I  remember  that  I  imagined  myself  to  fall  in 
love  with  her  in  this  way.  She  was  a  twin  of  two  sisters. 
Had  met  them  when  about  16  or  17  years  old.  They  appre- 
ciated us  and  we  liked  them  very  much.  One  time  driving 
home  from  a  theater  party,  I  noticed  her  holding  hands  with 
my  sister.  She  had  a  'crush'  on  my  sister,  as  other  young 
college  girls  did.  There  was  nothing  wrong  in  this  re- 
lationship between  the  two.  I  was  in  a  rather  soft  mood, 
and  I  aspired  to  deserve  the  same  affection  as  my  sister  re- 
ceived. 'If  she  would  only  hold  my  hand  like  that.'  And 
I  made  up  my  mind  that  I  was  in  love  with  her.  There  was 
no  sexual  attraction.  It  was  a  rather  sublimated  emotion 
that  I  felt  towards  her.  Afterwards  I  met  her  in  the  subway 
with  my  brother.  She  sat  down  and  I  sat  down  beside  her. 
I  think  she  would  rather  have  had  my  brother,  I  had  the 
same  rather  soft,  sublimated,  tender  emotion  at  that  time,  but 
I  was  nervous  and  excited  and  my  heart  beat  very  fast. 
Later  my  brother  and  I  were  asked  out  to  her  home  over  the 
week  end.     Hearing  that,  I  became  nervous  and  excited  at 


272  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

the  idea  of  seeing  her.  The  whole  thing  was  in  my  mind. 
However,  there  was  no  sex  feeling.  I  was  inwardly  rest- 
less, but  outwardly  I  was  rather  self-possessed,  while  out 
there.  I  slept  little  and  felt  as  if  I  had  fever.  I  remember 
walking  with  her  and  my  brother,  and  running  races  also, 
in  which  I  made  a  great  effort  to  shine.  I  tried  to  talk  to 
her,  but  her  attitude  was  favorable  towards  my  brother  who 
liked  her  in  an  impersonal  way.  She  did  not  have  any 
strikingly  emphasized  secondary  characteristics  of  her  sex, 
which  was  rather  the  reason  I  liked  her."  What  he  means 
is  that  she  did  not  look  like  a  big  woman,  but  was  more  of  a 
boyish  type. 

"I  remember  sitting  indoors,  on  a  sofa,  and  her  inviting 
me  to  sit  beside  her  as  in  the  subway.  At  that  time  I  felt 
that  to  do  so  would  be  dishonest,  since  she  had  too  much 
money  for  me  to  be  happily  married  to  her.  My  thoughts 
were  socialistic  at  that  time.  Yet  I  had  an  impulse  to  do  so, 
and  I  loved  her  in  that  way.  I  did  not  see  her  again,  but 
did  not  forget  her  at  all,  always  hoping  to  see  her  by  accident. 
One  time  I  actually  got  my  nerve  to  call,  but  she  was  out." 

You  can  see  thus  far  what  difficulty  this  boy  had  in  ad- 
justing himself  to  his  love  life. 

"Another  reason  I  did  not  press  my  suit  was  that  I  had 
heard  that  another  man  was  violently  in  love  with  her.  In- 
stead of  pressing  my  suit,  I  felt  no  jealousy,  as  I  ought  to, 
but  argued  that  if  he  was  madly  in  love  with  her,  as  he  was, 
and  I  only  in  a  very  spiritual  way,  I  could  yield  better  than 
he.  She  married  a  third  man  and  it  was  a  great  blow  to 
me.  My  emotion  was  thus  always  repressed,  and  as  I  ap- 
peared self-possessed  no  one  realized  it,  but  altogether  I  was 
very  much  perturbed.  I  had  pneumonia  a  year  afterwards, 
being  in  a  rundown  condition.  I  had  two  trained  nurses 
but  repressed  any  sex  feeling  because  it  would  not  be  sin- 
cere.    I  enjoyed  talking  to  them  and  was  interested  in  their 


COMMON  FORMS  OF  INSANITY  273 

ideas.  I  have  always  clung  to  the  ideal  which  this  girl 
seemed  to  fit.  I  transferred  my  interest  to  my  studies,  and 
had  no  friends. 

"All  this  occurred  while  this  homosexual  practice  was 
being  carried  on  between  my  brother  and  myself.  The  next 
incident  was  that  up  at  a  certain  lake  my  brother  met  a  girl 
towards  whom  he  had  much  the  same  feeling  in  a  more 
transient  phase.  This  period  marked  the  end  of  our  homo- 
sexual practice.  We  were  really  ignorant  of  its  real  import. 
Altogether  we  vaguely  realized  it  was  wrong.  I  felt  a  slight 
attraction  towards  this  girl,  who  was  beautiful,  but  rather 
stood  apart,  and  let  my  brother  do  the  talking.  This  time 
tlie  girl  appeared  to  discourage  my  brother,  and  since  then  I 
have  called  on  her  several  times. 

"After  going  through  college  and  beginning  the  senior  part 
of  law,  just  before  examination  time,  my  sister,  who 
had  been  long  ailing,  suddenly  became  sick  and  had  to  be 
taken  to  the  hospital."     He  enters  at  length  into  this  matter. 

"During  college  and  professional  school  I  had  formed  the 
habit  of  watching  girls  undress  by  means  of  field  glasses,  I 
did  this,  sometimes  masturbating  through  an  excited  im- 
agination. Toward  the  servants  I  had  no  sex  feeling,  I 
thought  little  of  sex  except  with  regard  to  this  field  glass 
habit,  which  I  carried  on  at  intervals.  I  kept  this  up  'til  last 
fall. 

"After  trying  to  get  a  job  in  vain  last  fall,  (the  war  had 
affected  the  situation  somewhat)  at  my  brother's  suggestion 
I  went  to  Johns  Hopkins  University,  in  Baltimore.  I  spent 
two  weeks  sight  seeing,  then  took  a  laboratory  course.  I 
made  efforts  to  take  an  interest  in  girls,  flirting  with  them  in 
street  cars.  Baltimore  is  a  small  city,  and  some  of  the  girls 
flirt  very  easily.  I  went  to  the  Lyric  Theatre,  where  the 
fashionable  concerts  and  plays  were  given.  I  lived  in  a 
hotel,  but  did  not  meet  any  women  at  all,  except  at  Uni- 


274  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

versity  classes.  I  was  interested  in  the  Ph.  D.  courses,  and 
was  thinking  of  taking  a  degree.  I  heard  that  two  of  the 
Professors  at  the  school  were  leaders  in  Baltimore  society. 
Desiring  to  take  for  once  a  real  interest  in  girls,  and  hoping 
to  meet  one  I  could  fall  in  love  with,  I  made  up  my  mind  to 
speak  to  them.  I  went  to  Professor  B.  and  told  him  that 
there  was  a  case  of  insanity  in  the  family  and  gave  the  im- 
pression that  it  had  to  do  with  sex,  and  also  that  I  would 
like  to  get  into  Baltimore  society.  He  was  very  nice  to  me, 
and  when  I  asked  to  be  introduced  to  some  girls,  he  said 
that  he  would  see  about  it.  Apparently  I  did  not  show  the 
proper  sex  interest,  for  when  I  next  went  to  him,  he  said,  that 
the  roundabout  way  was  best,  and  also  said,  'Go  with  normal 
men  first,'  and  smiled,  implying  sex  experience  is  necessary. 
He  told  me  to  join  the  Johns  Hopkins  Club,  which  I  did.  At 
this  time  I  changed  my  place  from  the  Hotel  to  a  boarding 
house,  because  it  was  cheaper,  and  the  food  was  better.  I 
remember  one  story  told  in  my  hearing  at  the  club."  And 
then  the  patient  relates  some  sort  of  pun  which  I  never 
could  make  out. 

"The  second  time  upon  my  return  from  a  game,  I  had  a 
queer  experience.  I  was  standing  in  front  of  the  waiting 
station,  flirting  a  bit  with  the  girls  who  passed  with  'middies,' 
when  there  came  out  two  middies  with  girls  and  a  chaperon, 
evidently  their  mother.  One  middy  carried  a  suit  case,  and 
as  I  passed  one  of  the  girls  nudged  me  with  the  case  as  it 
brushed  by  me.  I  felt  an  interest  in  these  girls  but  did  not 
look  them  over.  The  mother  was  evidently  a  very  fine  lady 
and  they  were  fashionably  dressed.  The  light  haired  one 
was  rather  good  looking  I  thought  at  the  time.  The  other 
one  was  dark  and  rather  peculiar  looking  and  had  'sad'  eyes. 
This  one  sat  alone,  the  mother  and  the  light  haired  one  on  the 
other  side  of  the  car,  one  seat  back.  The  rest  of  the  car  con- 
sisted largely  of  a  rather  tough  crowd.     I  sat  in  the  rear  seat, 


COMMON  FORMS  OF  INSANITY  275 

but  sufficiently  near  to  keep  an  eye  on  the  one  who  nudged 
me.  The  peculiar  looking  one  seemed  to  be  the  object  of  at- 
tention especially  to  one  man,  and  the  light  haired  one  evi- 
dently became  much  worried,  and  looked  back  at  me  con- 
tinually. At  last,  this  was  before  I  saw  this  Professor  B. 
I  thought  I  should  not  meet  any  girls  on  account  of  insanity 
in  the  family.  I  debated  whether  to  intervene  or  not.  I 
finally  decided  upon  watchful  waiting,  but  the  distress  of  the 
three  women  increased,  until  finally  I  was  about  to  get  up 
and  look  at  the  man,  who  got  up  himself  and  walked  into 
the  smoker." 

This  idea  that  the  girl  nudged  him  was  of  course  only 
imaginary,  as  well  as  the  situation  regarding  the  man, 

"This  produced  of  course  a  great  sensation  with  the  girls. 
I  had  apparently  made  a  hit.  They  smiled  their  thanks  to 
me,  and  I  smiled  back.  Then  they  took  off  their  hats  and 
wraps,  and  tried  to  fiirt  with  me,  arranging  their  hair.  But 
I  saw  no  reason  for  picking  them  up,  arguing  that  nice  girls 
should  not  be  treated  that  way.  When  the  electric  car 
stopped  to  change  for  Washington,  they  got  out.  The  light- 
haired  girl's  expression  was  peculiar,  as  if  she  had  been  hard 
hit.  The  mother  smiled  at  me  rather  scornfully,  as  if  to 
say,  'You'll  find  out  who  we  are,  don't  worry,'  and  seemed 
half  angry  at  my  attitude.  I  tried  to  convey  that  I  would 
have  liked  to  meet  them,  but  circumstances  did  not  permit.  I 
later  remembered  that  girl  on  account  of  the  incident  and 
rather  idealized  her,  and  thought  that  she  must  be  in 
Washington  society. 

"Evidently  in  the  South  it  is  the  custom  when  one  person 
wants  to  meet  another,  and  for  some  reason  cannot,  to  bring 
them  together  at  a  play  or  concert.  Anyway  I  saw  shortly 
afterwards  both  girls  and  picked  them  out  by  recognizing 
them  among  a  crowded  audience.  The  first  girl  was  a  girl 
of  German  descent,  from  the  remarks  that  I  heard  at  my 


276  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

boarding  house,  which  evidently  was  a  secret,  for  on  leav- 
ing for  the  Alumni  meeting  at  X.  they  assured  me  that  Balti- 
more was  Germania,  with  great  emphasis.  These  remarks 
were  made  while  discussing  nationality.  I  compared  this 
girl  with  the  one  I  idealized  and  found  I  did  not  care  for 
her. 

"A  week  later  I  went  to  a  ball  game  and  felt  a  sort  of  ex- 
citement in  my  arm.  People  left  hurriedly  and  there  was  a 
sort  of  excitement  of  expectancy.  A  girl  sitting  next  to 
me  looked  all  around  the  bleachers,  as  if  I  was  to  do  the  same 
thing  as  all  the  others.  Finally  four  or  five  girls  came,  and 
the  men  behind  me  began  to  patter  with  their  feet,  as  if  I 
was  to  walk  around.  I  did  so  and  by  careful  scrutiny  was 
able  to  locate  my  Washington  friend.  Under  cold  daylight, 
she  seemed  a  different  girl,  I  had  seen  her  at  6  o'clock,  and 
yet  she  had  the  same  features  and  hair.  She  laughed  at  me, 
and  encrouched  her  shoulders  over  as  if  to  call  me  down 
from  my  high  horse.  After  looking  her  over  carefully  I  re- 
turned to  my  former  seat.  A  man  seated  nearby,  made  this 
remark,  'Well,  well,  well,'  evidently  somewhat  surprised  at 
my  lack  of  gallantry.  Before  this  and  after  this  incident, 
people  began  to  look  towards  Washington  when  I  passed 
them.  I  considered  this  a  Southern  custom,  made  to  help 
along  matrimony.  And,  after  this  the  ball  game  continued 
and  also  they  began  to  turn  their  heads  and  indicate  unclean 
finger  nails.  After  a  particularly  aggravating  display  of 
these  signs  by  a  rather  fashionable  party,  one  of  them  said, 
apparently  to  me,  'This  is  your  last  chance.'  A  lady  at  the 
ball  game,  several  times  touched  her  mouth  significantly, 
and  then  stuck  her  fingers  in  her  glove  of  the  other  hand,  as 
if  to  show  what  to  think  of,  kissing  and  the  sexual  act 
when  I  looked  at  girls,  or  what  to  do  to  be  acceptable  to 
society." 

You  may  thus  see  how  nicely  these  symbolic  actions  are 


COMMON  FORMS  OF  INSANITY  277 

shown.  He  interprets  everything  in  his  own  way,  working 
it  out  in  conformity  with  his  own  delusional  ideas. 

He  was  to  a  lecture  on  physics,  but  to  him  it  seemed  full 
of  hints  for  him.  "Work  out  these  values  and  then  we  will 
go  on,"  which  meant  "I  am  to  have  sex  experience,  toil.  My 
inexperience  prevented  me  from  getting  there.  After  this 
I  decided  to  come  to  New  York,  as  there  was  nothing  else  to 
do  in  the  social  line,  no  one  conforming  with  my  ideal.  I 
did  so,  and  called  on  the  girl  of  the  B.  L.  socially,  but 
did  not  get  to  know  her  sufficiently  to  make  advances." 

There  is  nothing  unusual  about  this  case  when  we  bear  in 
mind  that  it  is  a  case  of  insanity.  Its  most  noteworthy  facts 
are  as  f ollow^s :  First,  it  is  evident  that  this  young  man  has 
had  an  abnormal  sexual  life.  There  was  a  constant  struggle 
between  sensuousness  and  chastity  until  the  patient  became 
insane.  He  began  with  the  autoerotic  sexual  outlet,  mastur- 
bation, which  he  w^as  very  anxious  to  suppress.  In  this  he 
succeeded  for  a  time  but  soon  returned  to  it.  There  then 
followed  the  homosexuality  with  his  own  brother  and  a  few 
others.  Finally  he  was  confronted  with  the  trying  problem 
of  adjusting  himself  to  heterosexuality,  his  failure  in  this 
respect  terminating  in  delusions.  His  whole  delusional 
system  was  that  people  were  observing  him  and  making  re- 
marks about  him,  disparaging,  insulting  remarks,  because  he 
was  unable  to  do  his  duty  sexually;  many  girls  were  in- 
terested in  him,  but  he  was  too  slow  and  not  man  enough  to 
respond  to  them.  He  believed  that  if  he  were  sexually 
normal,  the  women  would  have  liked  him ;  he  was  not  liked 
because  he  had  had  no  experiences  with  them.  When  the 
patient  was  asked,  therefore,  why  he  did  not  go  right  ahead 
and  have  experiences  with  women,  he  replied  that  he  could 
not,  that  he  heard  voices  telling  him  that  that  would  be 
wrong  and  immoral. 

We  could  continue  to  speak  about  the  extreme  mental 


278  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

cases,  the  psychoses,  for  many  an  hour  more,  but  I  feel  that 
what  I  have  already  told  you  should  sufifice  to  give  you  a 
general  appreciation  of  the  subject,  at  any  rate  as  far  as  our 
purposes  here  are  concerned.  Before  leaving  the  subject 
entirely  I  wish  to  make  this  one  point,  namely,  that  even  in 
the  so-called  normal  person  there  may  be  observed  some  of 
those  traits  that  I  have  pointed  out  in  those  extreme  mental 
disturbances.  That  is  to  say,  besides  people  of  the  psycho- 
neurotic make-up,  the  hysterics,  compulsive  neurotics,  etc., 
one  meets  in  life  also  individuals  who  are  distinctly  of  the 
paranoid  or  dementia  praecox  or  manic  type.  A  great  many 
writers  have  thus  come  to  the  conclusion  that  when  such  in- 
dividuals ever  become  insane,  they  always  gravitate  toward 
that  form  of  insanity  that  is  compatible  with  their  person- 
ality. That  is,  when  a  person  of  the  paranoid  make-up  be- 
comes insane,  he  gravitates  toward  paranoia,  a  person  of  the 
dementia  praecox  type  toward  dementia  praecox.  Through 
careful  observation  and  study  of  different  individuals,  par- 
ticularly on  the  experimental  basis  afforded  by  the  association 
test,  we  may  readily  see  these  types,  for  we  find  that  in- 
dividuals show  certain  definite  types  of  reactions  to  stimuli. 


CHAPTER  XI 
THE  ONLY  CHILD 

That  there  is  really  only  a  difference  of  degree  between 
the  most  abnormal  and  the  so-called  normal,  and  that  the 
degree  can  be  measured  in  terms  of  environment  can  readily 
be  shown  in  cases  where  regardless  of  predisposition  in  con- 
stitution, the  environment  alone  impresses  a  definite  stamp 
on  the  individual.  This  can  be  readily  seen  in  persons  who 
have  been  subjected  to  a  special  environment.  I  am  refer- 
ring to  the  only  child.  The  only  child  has  a  special  reaction 
to  the  world  which  diuers  in  every  way  from  that  of  his 
cousin,  let  us  say,  who  has  sisters  and  brothers.  We  also 
find  that  the  oldest  son  or  daughter  differs  in  every  way 
from  the  youngest  son  or  daughter. 

The  oldest  son  differs  from  the  others  because  his  position 
in  his  environment  was  such  that  he  had  to  develop  certain 
characteristic  traits.  For  one  thing,  he  was  more  aggressive 
than  the  others,  because  originally  he  was  the  only  child  in 
the  home,  when  the  second  child  came,  though  only  a  year 
later,  he  already  had  the  advantage  over  his  younger  brother, 
the  advantage  of  strength  and  knowledge.  But  usually  there 
is  more  than  the  difference  of  a  year.  Moreover  the  parents 
constantly  urge  the  older  brother  to  take  care  of  the  younger 
boy.  The  result  is  that  as  time  goes  on  there  is  the 
tendency  for  the  oldest  son  of  the  family  to  assume  leader- 
ship, so  that  when  the  father  dies  or  is  killed  he  becomes 
virtually  the  head  of  the  family.  We  see  here  how  the  in- 
stitution of  the  crown  prince  developed;  it  was  found  that 

279 


28o  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

when  the  father  died,  the  oldest  son  was  more  fit  to  rule 
than  the  others  by  virtue  of  his  standing  in  the  community 
right  in  his  own  home. 

And  so  it  is  with  the  "only"  or  "favorite"  child;  he  too 
occupies  a  special  position  in  the  home.  Whether  wilfully 
or  not,  parents  have  always  pampered  and  spoiled  the  only 
child.  When  people  love  each  other  they  usually  enhance  the 
love-object:  to  the  man  his  lady-love  is  the  most  charming 
creature  in  the  world,  to  the  woman,  her  lover  is  the  greatest 
man  on  earth.  After  they  have  married  a  process  of  disil- 
lusionment sets  in ;  the  most  charming  woman  becomes  an 
ordinary  girl  with  all  the  weaknesses  and  shortcomings  of 
her  sex,  and  the  greatest  man  an  ordinary  human  being.  But 
there  is  a  compensation  with  the  coming  of  the  first  child, 
the  gap  begins  to  be  filled,  there  develops  a  community  of 
interest  between  husband  and  wife.  To  the  man  there  is  a 
compensation  in  his  little  girl  in  whom  he  tries  to  realize  all 
those  ideals  that  he  found  in  the  woman  when  he  first  met 
her  but  which  seemed  to  have  gone  after  living  intimately 
with  her  for  some  time.  The  little  girl  now  occupies  a 
special  position  in  the  home,  the  father  has  a  special  interest 
in  her,  and  with  no  brother  or  sister  to  share  her  father's 
affection  the  result  is  that  she  becomes  spoiled.  In  a  state  of 
nature,  the  male  animal  really  takes  no  interest  in  the  young. 
He  leaves  them  as  soon  as  they  are  independent  enough  to 
seek  their  own  food.  It  is  different  with  human  beings,  the 
marriage  institution  devolves  upon  us  the  duty  of  living  to- 
gether. Some  compensation  is  necessary  and  wherever  there 
is  only  one  child,  both  parents  turn  to  the  child  to  fill  the 
emotional  gap  formed  because  of  the  disillusionment  due  to 
the  original  enormous  enhancement  of  the  partner. 

Another  serious  factor  in  the  development  of  the  only 
child  is  that  he  meets  with  no  competition  at  home.  Where 
there  are  three,  four,  or  five  children,  as  there  normally 


THE  ONLY  CHILD  281 

should  be,  there  is  constant  conflict,  they  fight  among  each 
other  and  thus  learn  to  adjust  themselves  to  the  struggle 
for  existence.  But  take  the  little  one  who  is  kept  in  the 
home  with  no  one  to  oppose  its  will,  on  the  contrary,  whose 
every  wish  is  gratified  and  who  is  always  guided  and  pro- 
tected most  jealously,  who  is  master  of  all  he  surveys  in  the 
home,  what  a  pitiable  sight  this  weakly  brat  presents  when 
put  out  into  the  world  at  the  age  of  five  or  six!  The  poor 
thing  is  helpless.  He  does  not  know  how  to  act,  he  distrusts 
everybody,  he  cannot  get  along  with  any  one. 

One  of  the  most  serious  handicaps  that  the  only  child  has 
to  cope  with  is  his  abnormal  attachment  to  the  mother,  what 
we  call,  his  fixation  upon  the  mother  image.  As  we  have 
said  before,  every  parent  puts  her  stamp,  her  image  on  the 
child.  The  child's  first  impulses  of  love  are  always  directed 
to  the  parent,  that  is,  a  little  boy's  first  sweetheart  is  always 
his  own  mother,  her  image  is  definitely  imprinted  upon  his 
mind,  so  that  forever  afterwards  the  child  is  always  guided 
by  this  image.  The  same  relation  exists  between  the  girl 
and  her  father.  At  the  age  of  prepubescence  the  children 
normally  begin  to  tear  themselves  away  from  the  parents ;  a 
little  boy  will  no  longer  even  like  to  be  hugged  and  kissed 
by  his  mother,  he  will  feel  that  it  is  not  quite  right,  that  it  is 
terribly  unmanly.  He  will  begin  to  find  other  women  with 
whom  he  will  fall  in  love.  The  history  taken  from  men  often 
showed  distinctly  that  at  8,  9,  or  10  years  of  age  they  were 
madly  in  love.  But  the  only  child  does  not  learn  to  detach 
his  libido  from  the  mother,  always  guarded,  as  he  is  by 
maternal  afifection.  Though  he  is  constandy  guided  by  it  in 
his  selection,  the  child  normally  tears  himself  away  from  the 
mother  image.  But  in  the  case  of  the  only  child,  where  the 
mother  had  the  opportunity  to  imprint  her  image  on  the  boy 
for  a  much  longer  time  and  in  a  considerably  stronger  way, 
the  image  of  the  mother  becomes  fixed  so  that  in  later  life 


282  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

he  is  always  controlled  by  it,  he  cannot  trust  any  one  but 
his  mother  or  some  one  resembling  her.  It  is  noteworthy 
that  the  woman  whom  the  child  first  takes  as  a  substitute  for 
the  mother  is  usually  of  about  his  mother's  age.  It  is  only 
as  he  grows  older  that  he  begins  to  be  more  and  more  inter- 
ested in  younger  women.  It  is  a  common  observation  that 
the  younger  the  man  the  older  the  woman  that  attracts  him. 
But  he  behaves  very  differently,  when  he  enters  his  second 
childhood ;  it  seems  then  the  other  way  around,  the  older  the 
man,  the  younger  the  woman  that  attracts  him.  As  age  ad- 
vances there  seems  to  be  a  regression  to  the  more  or  less 
infantile,  so  that  it  is  not  at  all  uncommon  to  find  many  old 
men  seeking  young  girls.  We  see  this  condition  in  its  ab- 
normal form  in  cases  of  senile  dementia  where  the  old  man 
in  dotage  actually  attempts  flirtations  with  young  girls  be- 
cause of  his  mental  deterioration.  In  normal  cases,  the  man 
merely  evinces  a  kindly  and  fatherly  interest  in  the  girl. 

In  transferring  this  early  attachment  from  the  mother  to 
other  women,  the  child  is  very  often  a  source  of  much 
anguish  to  the  parent.  Many  a  mother  sometimes  has  ex- 
perienced a  nervous  breakdown  when  it  became  evident  that 
the  son  was  tearing  himself  away  from  her.  It  is  hard  to 
realize  what  struggles  some  women  have  even  later  when 
their  sons  finally  choose  a  mate.  They  never  find  a  single 
girl  whom  they  approve  of.  We  have  here  the  reason 
for  the  mother-in-law  theme.  This  condition  exists  every- 
where, even  among  savages,  and  it  is  due  to  this  one  crucial 
fact,  that  the  mother-in-law  either  loves  her  son  to  such  an 
extent  that  she  does  not  want  any  other  woman  to  take  him 
away  from  her  and  does  not  actually  find  a  woman  worthy 
enough  of  her  boy,  or  living  through  her  daughter's  life  she 
identifies  herself  with  her  and  therefore  tends  to  fall  in  love 
with  her  daughter's  lover.  It  thus  happens  sometimes,  that 
the  daughter  is  actually  jealous,  and  I  have  had  many  women 


THE  ONLY  CHILD  283 

who  have  corroborated  this  from  their  own  experience.  Oc- 
casionally the  press  will  report  the  case  of  a  man  who  courted 
the  daughter  and  married  the  mother,  and  vice  versa.  We 
have  here  essentially  the  same  image  and  it  is  easy  enough  to 
transfer  its  influence  from  the  one  to  the  other. 

The  only  child  can  do  very  little  on  his  own  initiative,  but 
consciously  or  unconsciously  depends  largely  upon  the 
mother's  influence.  I  remember  once  treating  a  patient,  a 
last  child/  who  had  a  domineering  mother.  It  seemed  that 
he  was  never  able  to  do  anything  without  her.  He  came  to 
New  York  to  find  employment,  but  could  not  make  up  his 
mind  to  accept  a  position,  despite  the  fact  that  many  splendid 
opportunities  were  oiTered  him.  He  would  come  to  me 
and  we  would  weigh  the  situation  pro  and  con.  I  saw  no 
other  reason  for  his  indecision  and  procrastination  than  his 
inherent  weakness  to  decide.  Finally  I  discovered  that  his 
mother  was  wont  to  bid  him  do  something  in  this  manner: 
"Jack,  if  I  tell  you  to  do  it,  do  it."  One  day  he  came  to 
me  with  the  same  problem  and  I  decided  to  resort  to  that 
magic  formula.  I  said  to  him :  "If  I  tell  you  to  do  it,  do  it." 
And  surely  enough,  he  replied:  "Alright,  Doctor." 

The  only  child  rarely  marries,  and  if  he  does,  his  wife  is 
not  at  all  to  be  envied.  As  we  pointed  out,  the  average  boy 
in  a  home  of  four  or  five  children,  where  the  mother  has 
no  time  to  gratify  the  child's  ever-increasing  emotional 
cravings,  fixes  as  he  grows  older  from  one  woman  to  an- 
other, seeking  a  substitute  for  the  parent  in  the  person  of 
a  teacher,  nurse,  hairdresser,  etc.  He  transfers  his  emotions 
to  every  newcomer  in  the  home.  But  the  only  child  receives 
so  much  attention  and  love  from  the  parent  at  home  that  he 
does  not  learn  to  direct  his  libido  toward  others,  and  as  he 
grows  older,  his  libido  remains  more  or  less  fixed  upon  the 

^  We  must  remember  that  the  last  child  presents  the  same  problem 
as  the  only  child,  particularly  the  last  child  who  is  removed  from 
the  other  children  by  about  three  or  four  years. 


284  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

parent.  Occasionally  nature  asserts  itself  and  a  powerful 
stream  of  libido  wells  forth:  he  is  drawn  to  some  woman 
and  may  even  go  as  far  as  becoming  engaged  to  her.  But 
difficulties  soon  arise.  It  is  not  at  all  uncommon  for  an  only 
son  to  come  to  me  on  his  wedding  day  imploring  me  to  do 
something  to  stay  the  marriage.  On  such  an  occasion  one 
man  expressed  to  me  the  fear  that  perhaps  he  was  suffering 
from  appendicitis,  perhaps,  he  felt,  he  should  be  sent  to  the 
hospital.  I  assured  him  that  he  had  nothing  of  the  sort,  and 
he  continued  to  persuade  me,  "I  really  feel  a  pain,  doctor, 
maybe  I  have."  I  advised  him  not  to  marry  the  girl,  I  as- 
sured him  that  he  would  not  be  rendering  her  anything  in 
the  nature  of  a  favor.  But  the  family  physician  was  terrified 
at  my  advice  and  the  mother  politely  informed  me  that  I  was 
a  vicious  person.  And  so  the  poor  fellow  was  led  to  the 
ceremony  like  the  proverbial  lamb  to  be  slaughtered.  Now 
divorce  proceedings  are  going  on.  How  much  better  would 
it  be  to  have  stopped  the  fiasco  on  the  wedding,  what  trouble 
and  mortification  would  have  been  saved.  I  have  observed 
also  men  of  this  type  suddenly  seized  with  all  manner  of 
hysterical  aches  and  pains  when  the  time  came  for  them  to 
keep  the  appointment  that  they  had  made  with  some  young 
lady :  they  are  loathe  to  go.  The  average  normal  man  is 
delighted  to  go  out  and  meet  women,  play  cards,  flirt,  love, 
and  marry.  But  these  folks  are  too  weak.  Only  the  other 
day  one  of  these  men  remarked  to  me:  "If  I  would  not  have 
it  so  nice  at  home,  I  would  probably  marry,  but  as  it  is  I  do 
not  feel  like  it."  He  is  of  the  race  of  only  children  and  his 
mother  guards  him  like  the  apple  of  her  eye.  That  is  the 
very  expression  the  fond  parent  used  when  telling  me  about 
her  "seven- footer"  who  is  about  45  years  old.  When  she 
learned  that  I  advised  her  boy  to  marry,  she  became  terribly 
alarmed  and  came  to  me  at  once  and  told  me  just  what  she 
thought  of  me.     She  felt  that  although  he  was  strong  and 


THE  ONLY  CHILD  285 

healthy  now,  he  still  needed  mother's  care,  for  as  a  boy,  he 
was  delicate  and  weak  and  always  had  colds. 

The  only  son  generally  continues  to  live  in  his  own  little 
sphere,  quietly  and  apparently  well,  but  with  the  death  of 
the  mother  he  often  suffers  a  breakdown.  I  have  reported 
the  case  of  a  man,  the  last  child,  a  favorite  son,  though  not 
an  only  son.  He  was  really  an  only  child,  as  there  was  a  gap 
of  about  ten  years  between  him  and  the  other  children;  he 
was  considered  by  all  in  the  home  to  be  the  "kid"  in  the 
family.  He  grew  up  to  be  a  "nice"  man,  graduated  from 
college  and  became  a  lawyer.  Meanwhile  his  mother  was  get- 
ting older  and  older.  She  was  about  67  years  old,  and  her 
chronic  invalidism  confined  her  to  the  house.  One  day  it  oc- 
curred to  the  young  man  that  it  was  wrong  for  him  to  go 
downtown  to  the  office,  stay  there  all  day  and  then  go  out  so- 
cially at  night :  he  felt  that  he  ought  to  be  more  with  his  old 
mother.  He  decided  to  come  home  an  hour  earlier  each  day ; 
soon  he  made  it  two  hours  and  so  he  continued  to  leave  tlie 
office  earlier  and  earlier  until  he  finally  resigned  from  his  posi- 
tion and  stayed  home  all  the  time.  The  father  was  about 
eighty  and  the  son  hated  him  with  a  terrible  hatred.  He  used 
to  observe :  "The  only  thing  my  old  man  does  is  torture  my 
mother."  Finally  he  resigned  from  his  clubs  and  the  regi- 
ment with  which  he  used  to  go  out  drilling,  and  stayed  at 
home  to  take  care  of  his  dear  mother  entirely.  Presently 
he  stopped  shaving ;  he  had  no  desire  to  leave  the  house ; 
he  neglected  his  person.  The  mother  and  the  other  members 
of  the  family  protested  against  this,  they  felt  there  was 
something  wrong.  The  young  man  maintained  that  the 
children  were  heartless  to  let  the  mother  stay  alone  at  home. 
They  offered  to  stay  with  her,  but  he  refused,  he  felt  that 
his  sister  could  not  take  the  care  of  the  poor  woman  that 
he  did.  His  fond  hope  was  that  the  father  would  soon  die 
and  he  would  be  alone  with  his  dear  mother.    He  slept  in 


286  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

a  room  between  hers  and  the  father's  because  for  years  he 
was  afraid  that  the  latter  might  come  in  at  night  and  disturb 
her,  so  concerned  was  he  over  her  welfare.  Soon  the  father 
died,  and  a  few  days  later  the  mother.  Her  death  precipi- 
tated the  son's  complete  breakdown.  He  would  go  to  her 
cemetery  and  remain  there  all  day,  he  desired  to  commit 
suicide  on  her  grave.  He  came  home  and  had  delusions  of 
self -accusation.  He  charged  himself  with  having  shortened 
his  mother's  life:  he  cited  any  number  of  instances  when  he 
could  have  done  things  that  would  have  saved  her.  He  also 
blamed  himself  for  the  father's  death  and  was  mortified  at 
his  ill-treatment  of  him.  In  one  word,  he  began  to  show 
glaring  symptoms  of  dementia  prsecox  which  he  had  for 
years,  but  which  no  one,  of  course,  recognized.  Every  one 
thought  that  his  behavior  was  just  an  expression  of  extreme 
devotion.  Such  cases  are  not  at  all  rare,  though,  of  course, 
they  are  not  all  as  extreme. 

It  has  always  been  a  source  of  much  interest  to  me  to  note 
how  many  of  the  so-called  confirmed  bachelors  marry  after 
some  serious  illness,  after  they  have  been  operated,  let  us 
say,  for  kidney  trouble  or  appendicitis.  And  what  is  just 
as  interesting  is  to  observe  that  it  is  no  one  less  than  the 
nurse  herself  with  whom  the  devoted  son  has  fallen  in  love. 
I  confess,  before  I  knew  very  much  about  the  psychology  of 
the  unconscious,  I  was  a  little  surprised  at  these  tricks  of 
amor.  Now  I  realize  that  these  men  find  again  the  mother 
in  the  nurse,  the  woman  who  takes  mother's  untiring  interest 
in  them,  administers  hot  applications  to  their  bellies,  and 
performs  all  manner  of  personal  services  for  them.  Of 
course,  they  rationalize  their  attachment  as  an  expression 
of  gratitude  on  their  part,  but  fundamentally  the  affair 
cannot  be  regarded  as  anything  other  than  an  unconscious 
harping  back  to  the  mother's  influence. 

The  only  child  may  transfer  very  readily, — but  very  badly. 


THE  ONLY  CHILD  287 

He  quickly  forms  a  strong  attachment  and  just  as  quickly 

a  strong  dislil-ce.     This  form  of  reaction  can  be  observed 

even  at  an  early  age.     I  have  here  a  letter  that  a  father  of 

an  only  daughter  sent  me,   showing  the  typical  mode  of 

transference.^     It  was  written  by  a  very  precocious  girl  of 

II  to  her  father,  who  was  out  of  town,  after  she  had  had 

two  conferences  with  me: 

"A  wise  and  all  powerful  man  has  been  interviewed,  etc. 

At  all  times  the  soft  pedal  was  in  evidence  and  he  gradually 

reminded  me  of  Socrates.     He  was  highly  pleased  when  I 

informed  him  of  my  comparison.     One  more  mortal  has 

been  added  to  my  following  list  of  ideals :  Lincoln,  ideal 

man ;    Bonaparte,    warrior ;    Shakespeare,    author ;    Caruso, 

singer ;  Pavlowa,  dancer ;  Mrs.  Vernon  Castle,  girl  and  big 

looker ;  Fred  Stone,  comedian ;  Prof.  Brill,  Doctor."     But 

I  regret  to  say  that  she  was  so  utterly  disillusioned  in  me 

after    her   third    interview,    that    she    would    have    nothing 

more  to  do  with  me.     This  is  a  typical  example  of  quick 

transference,  first  in  the  positive  and  then  in  the  negative 

direction.     There  was  no  more  good  reason  for  her  strong 

aversion  than  for  her  comparing  me  to  Socrates.    The  point 

merely  was  that  at  first  I  may  have  reminded  her  of  her 

father  by  the  part  I  played  and  she  at  once  identified  me  with 

him.     But  on  the  second  occasion,  I  could  no  longer  fit  in 

with  her  image,  and  I  was  at  once  struck  oflF  from  her  list 

of  the  great  and  elite.    We  see  here  a  typical  only  child  in 

'The  term  transference  is  very  often  misused  by  so-called  psycho- 
analysts. They  seem  to  think  that  a  proper  transference  requires 
the  patient  to  fall  in  love  with  the  physician.  This  notion  causes 
much  harm  and  I  have  seen  cases  in  which  it  has  actually  led  to 
scandal,  to  say  nothing  of  the  fact  that  it  renders  the  whole  psycho- 
analytic treatment  absurdly  fruitless.  Neither  Freud  nor  his  school 
ever  advocated  such  an  idiotic  idea.  The  transference  mechanism 
involves  a  giving  and  taking  of  hostile  and  affectionate  emotions 
alike;  it  does  not  mean  exclusively  one  or  the  other.  Every  indi- 
vidual's transference  is  always  in  terms  of  the  sum  total  of  his 
present  reactions  to  the  environments.  To  understand,  therefore, 
the  one,  we  must  understand  the  other. 


288      .  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

the  literal  sense  of  the  word,  she  forms  enormous  likes  to-day 
and  just  as  enormous  dislikes  to-morrow. 

From  what  I  have  said  we  must  not  infer  that  every  only 
child  is  hopeless.  If  brought  up  properly  he  can  turn  out  to 
be  a  very  desirable  citizen  and  may  very  often  develop  into  a 
leader.^  He  has  many  desirable  attributes  which  when  used 
in  the  proper  direction  place  him  in  the  foremost  ranks 
among  men.  It  is  instructive  to  note  that  what  we  pointed 
out  regarding  the  development  of  the  crown-prince  institu- 
tion applies  also  to  such  rulers  as  Presidents  of  republics 
who  depend  on  the  people  for  their  election,  or,  in  other 
words,  that  Presidents  of  republics  are  still  only  sons,  oldest 
or  favorites  and  though  elected  by  the  people  have  the  same 
characteristics  as  those  oldest  sons  who  developed  the 
crown-prince  institution.  This  is  actually  borne  out  by  facts. 
Washington,  Adams,  Madison,  Jackson,  Grant,  Hayes, 
for  instance,  were  the  oldest  sons ;  Monroe  was  an  only  son, 
and  it  is  significant  that  we  owe  the  Monroe  Doctrine  to 
him;  so  were  Van  Buren,  Buchanan  (and  he  was  a  bach- 
elor!), and  Johnson.  Lincoln  was  the  second,  but  really 
the  only  son ;  Roosevelt  also,  as  you  know,  was  the  only  son. 
Harrison,  Tyler,  Taylor  were  the  third  sons  (and  it  is  not 
surprising  that  these  gentlemen  do  not  stand  out  very  con- 
spicuously). 

The  only  child  has  played  a  conspicuous  part  in  various 

fields  by  reason  of  his  aggressive  qualities.    It  is  noteworthy 

that  the  first  advertiser  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  word,  was 

an  only  child.     He  was  Kiselak  by  name,  and  was  born  in 

Vienna.     As  he  did  not  wish  to  be  a  merchant,  he  entered 

*  What  I  say  about  the  only  child  holds  true  also  of  the  oldest 
child,  for  in  view  of  the  importance  of  the  impressions  received 
during  the  first  few  years  of  life,  an  individual  that  has  been  the 
only  boy  or  girl  in  the  family  during  that  important  period  will 
show  a  great  many  of  the  only  child's  prominent  characteristics, 
though  he  may  not  show  the  latter's  typi»al  reaction. 


THE  ONLY  CHILD  289 

upon  a  literary  career,  but  his  earnings  from  that  source 
were  so  meager  that  he  was  compelled  to  live  on  the  money 
that  his  parents  had  left  him  when  they  died.  One  evening 
while  in  the  company  of  a  group  of  young  writers,  some 
of  the  men  began  to  poke  fun  at  his  apparent  lack  of  success 
and  fame  in  the  literary  world.  He  was  deeply  hurt  and 
right  there  and  then  made  a  wager  with  one  of  the  men  who 
mocked  him  that  within  ten  years  his  name  would  be  famous 
all  over  Europe;  no  specification  was  made  as  to  how  he 
would  do  it.  He  was  twenty-eight  years  old  when  he  started 
a  tour  through  Europe  to  carry  out  his  intentions.  He 
carried  the  simplest  kind  of  paraphernalia,  a  knapsack  and 
two  cans  of  paint,  one  of  white  and  one  of  red.  Whenever 
he  came  to  a  mountain,  he  would  climb  up  on  its  most 
prominent  part  and  there  in  huge  letters  paint  his  name  in 
either  red  or  white  paint  as  seemed  most  desirable  under  the 
circumstances.  For  six  years  he  continued  to  do  this  until 
he  suddenly  died;  the  name  of  Kiselak  became  known  to  all 
travelers.  Everybody  wondered  who  this  man  could  be,  he 
began  to  be  talked  about  far  and  wide.  This  is  characteristic 
of  the  only  child,  he  does  not  give  up  what  he  has  set  his 
mind  to  do. 

I  have  investigated  various  activities  in  life  to  discover  to 
what  extent  the  only  or  the  oldest  child  predominates  in 
those  activities.  Among  the  great  religious  teachers,  I  find 
that  Confucius  and  Paul  the  Apostle  were  the  first  born, 
Buddha  was  an  only  son,  Brahm  was  the  oldest  child, 
William  Penn  was  a  first  born  and  his  mother's  favorite. 
Cotton  Mather  was  the  first  born  in  a  family  of  ten.  Martin 
Luther  was  a  favorite,  though  not  an  only  child.  Bunyon 
was  the  oldest  and  favorite  son,  St.  Francis  was  the  first 
born  and  his  motlier's  favorite.  Among  men  of  science, 
Kepler  and  Galileo  were  the  oldest  sons.  Among  educators 
and  teachers,  Pestalozzi,  Bacon,  Froebel  and  Erasmus  were 


290  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

the  youngest  in  the  family,  Rousseau  was  the  second  and 
last  child,  but  as  his  older  brother  ran  away  as  a  child  and 
was  lost,  the  noted  author  of  Emile  was  really  an  only  child. 
This  is  the  briefest  possible  list,  and  is  intended  merely  to  be 
suggestive. 

You  may  wonder  why  so  many  of  the  world's  greatest 
teachers  were  the  youngest  children  of  the  family.  We 
should  bear  in  mind  that  the  youngest  child  also  occupies  a 
special  position  in  the  home.  Because  the  oldest  child  is  the 
first  one  to  instruct  the  younger  children  he  becomes  espe- 
cially fitted  by  his  environment  to  teach.  The  youngest  child, 
fathered  and  mothered,  as  he  is  constantly  by  the  others, 
has  his  shortcomings  pointed  out  to  him  so  repeatedly  that 
if  he  has  any  worth  and  virile  qualities  in  him  at  all,  he 
invariably  turns  out  to  be  a  teacher  just  to  show  his  brothers 
and  sisters  that  he  can  teach  just  as  well  as  they.  If  they 
are  of  the  proper  stuff  and  are  not  utterly  squelched  by  the 
others  in  the  home,  they  turn  out  to  be  leaders  themselves, 
and  strange  to  say,  many  take  to  teaching. 

To  give  you  a  general  idea  of  the  more  or  less  character- 
istic early  development  of  the  only  child,  his  relation  to  the 
parent,  his  place  in  the  home,  his  later  problems  and  con- 
flicts, I  can  do  no  better  than  to  read  to  you  a  dream  together 
with  its  more  or  less  fragmentary  analysis  given  to  me  by 
one  of  my  patients,  an  only  son,  suffering  of  what  I  diag- 
nosed as  a  mixed  neurosis.  He  is  afraid  to  be  out  alone,  to 
ride  in  subways  and  over  bridges,  etc. ;  he  has  also  some 
obsessive  thoughts  of  the  compulsion  neurotic  type.  I  must 
also  add  that  he  is  married  and  that  he  entered  into  matri- 
mony only  because  he  was  afraid  and  found  a  protector  in 
his  wife.  He  would  have  remained  single  had  he  not  found 
a  woman  whom  he  could  trust.    His  dream  runs  as  follows : 

"I  dreamed  of  going  on  the  way  to  the  apartment  where 
I  live.     The  sky  then  became  very  dark;  a  storm  was  ap- 


THE  ONLY  CHILD  291 

proaching.  There  were  many  thunder  sounds  and  some 
lightning.  The  people  were  all  standing  and  looking  towards 
the  west,  from  zvhich  direction  this  peculiar  storm  seemed  to 
be  coming.     Gradually  it  began  to  rain  and  storm,  and  at 

that  time  I  was  about  at St.,  and  then  it  occurred  to 

me  that  I  had  better  go  into  my  mother's  apartment.  I  went 
to  the  house  but  decided  not  to  go  in.  Then  I  wanted  to 
go  in,  and  so  I  kept  on  struggling  and  finally  did  not  go  in." 

Here  are  some  instructive  facts  that  the  analysis  revealed : 
"I  slept  with  my  mother  until  the  age  of  six  or  seven.  My 
mother  then  had  an  illness  of  some  duration.  Then  I  slept 
vi^ith  my  father  until  the  age  of  12."  It  is  noteworthy  that 
in  practically  every  case  of  this  type  the  boy  or  girl  slept 
with  the  parents  until  a  very  late  age.  I  am  glad  to  say  that 
we  do  not  find  this  practice  in  the  average  home,  the  child 
does  not  sleep  with  his  mother  or  father  at  the  age  of  six 
or  seven.  But  it  is  usual  in  the  cases  of  only  children.  Such 
a  practice  is  distinctly  harmful  to  the  normal  sexual  develop- 
ment of  the  child,  it  interferes  with  his  normal  emotional 
development.  Sleeping  with  the  parents  involves  contact 
and  thus  produces  a  precociousness  in  the  sex  life;  the  child's 
emotions  are  abnormally  stimulated.  If  we  were  savages 
there  would  be  no  harm  in  having  a  child  sleep  with  the 
parents,  because  we  would  act  as  savages  upon  reaching 
maturity.  But  as  civilized  beings  we  behave  differently  upon 
reaching  maturity;  in  other  words,  an  individual  may  be 
old  enough  to  indulge  in  all  kinds  of  sexual  practices,  but 
he  is  not  allowed  or  supposed  to  do  so  until  he  reaches  a 
certain  age. 

The  patient  then  continued  to  relate  how  unusually  at- 
tached he  was  to  his  mother  and  grandmother  when  a  boy 
of  five  or  six.  "I  recall  being  told  by  my  mother  that  when 
I  went  to  school  at  the  age  of  six,  mother  had  to  go  with  me 
and  that  it  was  only  after  a  few  days  of  staying  at  the  school 


292  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

that  I  could  be  induced  to  stay  there  alone.  I  cried  and 
raised  some  little  rumpus." 

When  I  asked  the  patient  what  games  he  played  when  he 
was  little,  he  informed  me  that  he  was  fond  of  dolls  up  to 
the  age  of  seven  or  eight.  He  remembered  in  particular  one 
large  doll  which  he  dressed  up  like  a  little  girl.  This  is 
significant,  for  it  is  well  known  that  many  efifeminate  men 
played  with  dolls  when  they  were  young  children.  Playing 
with  dolls  is  essentially  a  feminine  game.  I  have  studied  the 
question  for  a  number  of  years  and  I  feel  that  the  only 
reason  why  dolls  are  liked  by  little  girls  is  because  they 
appeal  to  the  feminine  instinct,  the  desire  for  children.  As 
Victor  Hugo  puts  it,  "A  woman's  last  doll  is  her  first  child." 
A  healthy  boy  will  refuse  to  play  with  dolls;  the  normal 
boy  always  gravitates  to  games  of  the  aggressive  type.  This 
is  as  it  should  be.  Indeed,  we  should  always  encourage  a 
boy  to  engage  in  those  games  that  help  to  develop  qualities 
of  manhood.  On  the  other  hand,  I  have  observed  men  who 
were  not  effeminate  though  they  had  played  with  dolls  when 
they  were  children.  These,  however,  showed  the  pernicious 
effects  of  the  practice  in  some  other  way.  Thus  I  recall  at 
this  moment  the  case  of  a  big,  strong  fellow,  an  only  son, 
brought  up  by  his  mother  and  aunt,  his  father  having  died 
when  he  was  very  young.  I  learned  that  the  only  type  of 
woman  that  attracted  him  was  the  woman  with  yellow  hair, 
of  the  doll  type,  and  this  despite  the  fact  that  his  mother 
was  not  of  that  type.  Analysis  showed,  however,  that  as  a 
child  he  always  played  with  dolls  and  had  a  particular  attach- 
ment to  a  big  doll  with  whom  he  slept  and  fondled  for  years. 

From  the  fragmentary  analysis  I  have  thus  far  given  you 
of  the  patient's  case,  you  may  readily  see  that  the  patient 
was  predisposed  to  his  neurosis,  first,  by  the  fact  that  he  was 
an  only  child,  and  secondly,  by  the  fact  that  his  sex  life  was 
stimulated  at  too  early  an  age.     He  had  to  repress  conse- 


THE  ONLY  CHILD  293 

quently  very  much  more  than  the  normal  boy  later  on  in 
life.  As  we  have  already  learned,  an  unusual  amount  of 
repressed  libido  manifests  itself  in  anxiety  and  it  is  this 
anxiety  which  is  at  the  basis  of  his  neurosis.  In  the  dream 
we  see  him  struggling :  he  really  wants  to  return  to  his 
mother  but  finally  decides  not  to.  This  is  exactly  his  problem 
in  actual  life.  Fortunately  he  made  a  good  selection,  but  his 
wife  is  at  the  very  most  only  a  poor  substitute  to  him  for  his 
mother.  If  the  latter  were  strong  enough  to  help  him  he 
never  would  have  married  the  woman.  He  had  to  have 
some  one  take  the  place  of  his  poor  old  debilitated  mother. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  is  always  seriously  thinking  whether 
he  should  not  give  up  his  profession  and  stay  home  with 
her  until  her  death.  In  the  dream  he  realizes  his  wish  not 
to  return  to  his  mother.  This  followed  our  discussion  on  the 
subject,  as  a  result  of  which  the  patient  was  beginning  to 
gain  more  and  more  insight  into  his  condition. 

The  intrinsic  problem  of  the  only  child,  his  fixation  upon 
the  mother,  has  been  noted  in  literature.  I  recall  at  this 
present  moment  a  little  conversation  in  Bernard  Shaw's 
"Pygmalion"  in  which  the  author  sums  up  the  situation  of 
the  only  son  most  admirably.  Prof,  Higgins,  an  only  son, 
speaking  with  his  mother : 

"Higgins:  I  have  picked  up  a  girl. 

"Mrs.  H. :  Does  that  mean  that  some  girl  has  picked 
you  up? 

"Higgins :  Not  at  all,  I  do  not  mean  a  love  affair. 

"Mrs.  H.:  What  a  pity! 

"Higgins:  Why? 

"Mrs.  H.:  Will  you  never  fall  in  love  with  any  one  under 
45  years  ?  When  will  you  discover  that  there  are  some  rather 
nice  looking  young  women  about? 

"Higgins :  I  cannot  be  bothered  with  young  ones.     My 


294  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

idea  of  a  woman  is  some  one  as  much  like  you  as  possible ; 
some  habits  lie  too  deeply  to  be  changed." 

How  well  the  author  sums  up  the  problem,  it  is  absolutely 
true  to  type. 

Just  a  few  words  before  closing  on  prophylaxis.  Of 
course,  it  would  be  best  for  the  individual  as  well  as  the 
race  that  there  should  be  no  only  children.  However,  when 
this  cannot  be  avoided  by  virtue  of  ill  health  or  death  of  one 
of  the  parents  the  child  need  not  necessarily  become  neurotic 
and  belong  to  any  of  the  categories  mentioned  above.  It  all 
depends  upon  its  subsequent  bringing  up. 

When  we  read  the  history  of  only  children  we  find  that 
only  tiiose  who  have  been  brought  up  wrongly  develop  into 
abnormal  beings,  those  who  are  not  pampered  and  coddled 
have  the  same  chances  as  other  children.  As  classical  ex- 
amples we  may  mention  Nero  and  Confucius,  the  former 
was  a  spoiled  only  child,  while  the  latter  was  a  well-bred  only 
child.  An  only  child  should  be  made  to  associate  with  other 
children  who  will  now  teach  him  that  he  is  not  the  only  child 
in  the  world.  This  should  begin  at  a  very  early  age.  I 
have  seen  many  "nervous  and  wild"  only  children  who  were 
completely  changed  after  a  few  weeks'  attendance  in  a 
kindergarten  or  public  school.  But  what  is  still  more  im- 
portant is  that  only  children  should  not  be  gorged  with 
parental  love.  Parents  should  take  care  that  such  children 
should  not  develop  an  exaggerated  idea  of  their  own  per- 
sonality and  think  that  they  are  the  center  of  the  universe. 
For  individuals  imbued  with  such  paranoid  ideas  are  bound 
to  come  into  conflict  with  their  fellow  men. 

The  problem  is  more  complicated  when  we  come  to 
prophylaxis  in  relation  to  psychosexuality  and  I  regret  that 
I  am  unable  to  enter  here  into  a  long  discussion.  I  shall 
merely  say  that  proper  sex  regulation  does  not  necessarily 
imply  repression  and  extermination  of  all  sex  feelings,  and 


THE  ONLY  CHILD  295 

that  the  requisite  for  perfect  manhood  and  womanhood  are 
all  the  impulses  and  desires  that  are  normally  common  to 
men  and  women. 

In  conclusion  I  wish  to  say  that  the  only  child  is  a  morbid 
product  of  our  present  social  economic  system.  He  is 
usually  an  offspring  of  wealthy  parents  who,  having  been 
themselves  brought  up  in  luxury  and  anxious  that  their 
children  should  share  their  fate,  refuse  to  have  more  than 
one  or  two  children.  By  their  abnormal  love  they  not  only 
unfit  the  child  for  life's  battle  but  prevent  him  from  develop- 
ing into  normal  manhood,  thus  producing  sexual  perverts 
and  neurotics  of  all  descriptions. 


CHAPTER  XII 
FAIRY  TALES  AND  ARTISTIC  PRODUCTIONS 

The  difficulties  of  adjustment  as  seen  in  the  only  child, 
which  are  mainly  due  to  the  fact  that  the  individual  cannot 
live  in  conformity  to  the  principle  of  reality  too  often  produce 
neuroses  and  psychoses.  Whenever  we  study  the  life  his- 
tory of  such  a  psychosis  we  find  that  the  patient  has  been 
fitted,  as  it  were,  by  his  environment  for  the  abnormal  part 
he  is  to  play.  In  brief,  all  cases  amenable  to  examination 
show  that  long  before  the  psychosis  developed  he  has,  as  it 
were,  been  prepared  for  his  delusions  and  hallucinations. 
The  only  child  living  alone  has  to  imagine  himself  playing 
with  a  younger  brother  because  he  is  in  great  need  of  human 
companionship ;  the  last  child  being  dominated  and  tyrannized 
by  parents  and  older  brothers  and  sisters  perforce  has  to 
imagine  himself  a  hero  overcoming  them  all, — a  Jack  the 
Giant  Killer.  Or  the  sensitive  predisposed  child  whose 
primitive  impulses  have  not  been  properly  adjusted  must 
dispose  the  feelings  emanating  from  them  somehow  in  the 
form  of  fancies  and  dreams.  Such  processes  of  adjustment 
have  given  rise  to  a  literature  widely  known  as  fairy  tales. 

Having  their  origin  in  an  attempt  at  adjustment  through 
the  creation  of  an  imaginary  world  after  one's  own  heart, 
so  to  say,  fairy  tales  are  invariably  expressions  of  the  wish 
motive.  The  individual  tries  to  supplement  in  the  imagina- 
tion what  is  denied  him  in  reality.  It  makes  no  difference 
where  the  fairy  tale  comes  from,  whether  from  Iceland  or 
India,  it  always  shows  the  wish  fulfillment  tendency  when 

296 


FAIRY  TALES  297 

analyzed.  Hearn's  story  of  the  "Nun  in  the  Temple  of 
Armida"  will  serve  as  a  typical  example  of  how  the  wish 
fancy  motivates  the  fairy  tale. 

Oda  is  patiently  waiting  with  her  little  boy  for  the  return 
of  her  husband,  who  was  for  a  long  time  in  the  service  of 
his  feudal  lord.  She  is  a  very  pious  and  devoted  wife  and 
in  her  anxious  expectation  she  performed  many  strange 
ceremonial  acts.  She  offered  a  miniature  meal  for  her 
husband  such  as  was  offered  to  the  Gods,  and  if  steam  was 
formed  on  the  inside  of  the  place  which  was  covered,  she 
was  pleased  because  that  was  a  sign  that  he  was  alive.  She 
loved  her  little  boy  and  occupied  herself  with  him  almost 
constantly.  She  went  on  pilgrimages  to  Daheyam  IMoun- 
tain  with  her  little  boy,  where  all  were  wont  to  go  who  were 
anxiously  awaiting  their  beloved  relatives.  But  Anid,  her 
husband,  died  in  a  foreign  land  and  shortly  thereafter  there 
followed  the  death  of  the  little  boy.  After  going  through 
a  very  long  period  of  depression  she  began  to  collect  very 
small  toys;  she  used  to  spread  out  little  baby  dresses  on  the 
lawn  and  talk  to  them  and  fondle  them  smilingly.  This 
action  brought  on  convulsive  sobs.  She  then  resorted  to  the 
rite  of  conjuring  up  the  spirits  of  the  deceased  and  received 
the  following  consoling  message : 

"Oh,  mother,  do  not  cry  for  my  sake,  it  is  not  right  to 
cry  over  the  dead.  For  their  silent  way  leads  over  the 
stream  of  tears  and  if  mothers  cry  the  flood  rises  high  and 
the  soul  cannot  rest  and  wanders  restlessly  to  and  fro." 
Since  then  she  stopped  crying  but  refused  to  marry  and 
showed  a  liking  for  little  things.  Everything  seemed  too  big 
for  her.  Her  room,  her  chair,  her  bed  were  all  too  big  for 
her.  She  made  a  little  baby  house  and  tried  to  live  in  places 
that  were  toylike.  Her  parents  then  advised  her  to  become 
a  nun  in  a  tiny  little  temple  with  the  smallest  altar  and 
Buddha  images.     She  entered  the  small  Temple  of  Armida 


298  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

and  spent  her  time  in  weaving  very  small  chairs  which, 

although  too  small  for  practical  use,  were  bought  by  some 

who  knew  of  her  history.    Her  greatest  pleasure  was  in  the 

society  of  little  children  whom  she  would  imitate  in  every 

respect.     When  she  died  a  tiny  tombstone  was  placed  over 

her  grave.^ 

Here  we  can  see  that  the  mother  identified  herself  with 

her  little  boy,  trying  to  realize  in  this  way  her  abnormal  wish. 

We  find  this  mechanism  among  primitive  men,  children,  and 

normal  and  abnormal  people  alike.     We  know,  for  instance, 

how  the  savage  will  daub  himself  to  resemble  his  god.    The 

child,  because  his  greatest  desire  is  to  be  big,  walks  on  stilts 

and  dresses  up  like  its  elder.    In  our  modern  times  we  have 

spiritualism.     People  resort  to  the  spiritualist  in  order  to 

realize  their  wishes.    It  is  a  surprisingly  easy  matter  to  detect 

the  whole  fraud  when  we  bear  in  mind  that  the  medium 

relies  entirely  upon  the  suggestions  of  the  audience.    When 

he  opens  the  seance,  for  instance,  with  "1  see  a  child,  it  is 

looking  for  its  mother,"  we  may  rest  assured  that  there  is 

bound  to  be  in  the  audience  a  brooding  and  sorrowful  woman 

who  had  lost  her  child  and  who  will  consequently  react  to 

this  with  apparently  marked  emotions ;  her  reaction  will  be 

such  as  to  tell  the  medium  that  he  is  on  the  right  track.    Our 

inspired  friend  now  has  a  basis  on  which  to  proceed.    His 

messages  are  not  from  the  departed,  they  are  merely  wishes, 

which  he  has  pieced  together  as  best  he  could,   from  the 

suggestions  that  he  has  received  from  the  audience.    In  the 

same  way  women  wonder  how  the  fortune  teller  could  know 

that  they  are  in  love :  they  do  not  realize  that  they  consulted 

him  because  of  that  very  fact.    In  the  final  analysis,  all  such 

interests  on  the  part  of  men  and  women  may  be  reduced  to 

the  one  fundamental  fact, — that  we  always  strive  to  realize 

our  wishes. 

*  Cf .  Riklin:  Wunscherfiillung  und  Symbolikin  Marchen  Denticke, 
Wien,  1908. 


FAIRY  TALES  299 

The  tear  motive  found  in  the  story  of  the  Nun  of  Armida 
is  seen  in  many  other  fairy  tales.  We  find  the  following  tale 
in  Ludwig  Beechstein's  Fairy  Book: 

Three  days  and  nights  a  mother  cried  at  the  sick  bed  of 
an  only  child,  but  it  died.  The  mother  was  seized  with 
terrible  pain.  She  ate  nodiing  and  drank  nothing  for  three 
more  days,  crying  incessantly  and  calling  for  the  child.  Then 
the  door  opened  noiselessly  and  the  child  stood  before  her. 
It  was  now  a  beautiful  little  angel  and  smiled  at  her  ecstat- 
ically. In  its  hand  it  carried  a  little  pitcher  which  was  almost 
overflowing.  The  child  spoke  the  following:  "Oh  dearest 
mother,  cry  no  longer  for  me.  Behold  your  tears  which 
you  shed  for  me  are  collected  in  this  pitcher.  Only  one  more 
tear  and  it  will  overflow  and  I'll  have  no  rest  in  my  grave 
and  no  peace  in  heaven.  Please  cry  no  more.  I  am  an  angel 
and  have  angels  to  play  with."  We  see  here  the  wish  motive 
most  admirably  rationalized.  The  same  theme  is  treated 
with  slight  variation  by  the  Grimm  brothers. 

To  grasp  their  deeper  significance  many  fairy  tales  must 
be  interpreted  symbolically.     Here  is  a  typical  example: 

There  was  once  a  man  who  had  three  daughters.  He 
was  going  to  the  market  and  asked  his  daughters  what  he 
should  bring  them  home.  The  oldest  daughter  wanted  a 
golden  spinning  wheel,  the  second  daughter  wanted  a  golden 
reel,  and  the  youngest  daughter,  Oda,  said,  "Bring  me  that 
which  will  run  under  your  wagon  on  your  return  from 
market."  The  father  bought  the  two  daughters  the  things 
they  desired.  On  his  way  home  he  suddenly  beheld  a  snake 
under  the  wagon.  He  caught  it  for  his  youngest  daughter. 
He  threw  it  in  front  of  the  gate  and  left  it  there  for  Oda. 
When  she  came  out  the  snake  began  to  talk  to  her,  saying, 
"Oda  dear,  may  I  not  come  into  the  house  ?"  And  Oda  said, 
"My  father  brought  you  to  the  door  and  now  you  wish  to 
come  in  ?"    But  she  let  the  snake  come  in.    When  he  entered 


300  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

the  house,  he  asked  to  go  into  her  bedroom ;  then  when  Oda 
was  getting  into  bed,  he  wished  to  be  taken  to  bed.  He  then 
became  transformed  into  a  young  prince,  who  could  be  re- 
deemed only  in  this  manner.  From  what  we  have  already 
said  about  dream  symbolism  it  is  not  hard  to  see  the  sig- 
nificance of  this  story.  The  snake  very  clearly  represents 
the  male  elements,  and  we  have  here  a  simple  sexual  wish. 
It  is  noteworthy  that  we  encounter  this  particular  symbolism 
also  in  insanity.  Thus  one  of  my  patients  in  a  hospital 
imagined  that  a  snake  lived  within  her  body,  and  one  day 
she  informed  me  that  it  was  in  her  genital.  We  see  here 
how  well  the  symbolism  is  carried  out. 

Fairy  tales  representing  essentially  an  abnormal  gratifica- 
tion of  the  individual's  inner  strivings  and  wishes,  it  is  not 
at  all  surprising  to  find  that  they  are  invariably  products  of 
shut-in,  seclusive  personalities,  persons  who  never  came  in 
normal  contact  with  other  people,  and  who  generally  led  an 
abnormal  existence.  Such  individuals  resorted  to  the  fairy 
tale  as  a  mode  of  emotional  gratification.  Thus  Andersen 
did  not  see  a  single  child  up  to  the  age  of  eleven  or  twelve. 
In  fact,  when  he  was  placed  in  contact  with  children  he 
could  not  get  along  with  them.  He  confessed  himself  that 
he  used  to  spin  phantom  children  in  his  brain  with  whom  he 
constantly  played.  This  is  not  surprising,  for  if  you  take  a 
child  who  has  any  desire  at  all  to  associate  with  others  and 
keep  him  all  to  himself,  he  will  invariably  create  some 
imaginative  companion.  Thus  I  have  in  mind  the  case  of 
a  young  girl  who  continued  to  fancy  that  she  had  a  little 
companion ;  she  would  buy  various  toys  for  it,  save  Christ- 
mas presents  for  it,  and  insist  that  mother  buy  an  extra  ticket 
for  it  when  she  was  taken  to  the  theater. 

It  is  because  this  preformed  mechanism  of  fancying  exerts 
the  most  pernicious  influence  in  the  individual's  later  life, 
that  I  am  so  strongly  opposed  to  fairy  tales.    Take  the  case 


FAIRY  TALES  301 

of  a  patient  who  broke  down  when  the  woman  he  was  about 
to  marry  was  shot.  He  was  continually  obsessed  with 
fancies  about  her.  He  would  find  himself,  for  instance, 
unconsciously  opening  the  door  of  his  car  to  let  her  in, 
adding,  "Hurry,  dear,  we  have  to  get  there  in  time."  For 
many  hours  of  the  day  he  would  actually  engage  in  imaginary 
conversations  with  the  woman  whom  he  had  lost.  It  is* 
significant  that  analysis  revealed  that  the  man  formed  in 
early  childhood  a  strong  habit  of  fancying.  Having  learned 
in  childhood  to  satisfy  himself  with  phantoms,  he  now  found 
it  impossible  to  resign  himself  to  the  fact  that  she  was  dead, 
and  lived  with  her  in  his  imagination.  There  is  no  doubt  at 
all  that  such  a  tendency  to  fancy  in  early  childhood  is  detri- 
mental to  the  individual's  psychic  development,  for  we  cannot 
cope  with  an  inexorably  real  world  if  we  live  in  fancies. 

There  are  quite  a  number  of  interesting  fancies  of  grown- 
ups that  I  could  cite  to  you,  that  may  all  be  traced  to  the 
influence  of  an  early  strong  tendency  to  fancy.  I  shall  read 
a  few: 

The  scene  of  this  story  was  laid  in  the  suburbs  of  one  of 
the  principal  cities  of  the  United  States  where  families  of 
means  and  education  reside.  E.  S.,  who  lived  here,  was  a 
governess  in  the  family  of  Mrs.  L.,  and  had  such  a  pleasing 
personality  that  she  attracted  in  rather  an  unusual  way  the 
friends  of  her  employer.  She  was  engaged  to  a  rich  English- 
man who  owned  an  estate.  She  would  read  extracts  from 
his  letters  to  her  friends,  and  announced  tbat  he  was  coming 
to  this  country.  Although  Mrs.  L.  invited  him  to  dine  with 
her  there  was  always  the  excuse  of  a  previous  plan  preventing 
the  visit.  E.  S.  would  describe  to  her  employer  the  pleasures 
she  enjoyed  with  him,  and  how  he  would  take  her  to  the 
train  and  they  would  talk  until  it  came  in.  At  last  the  date 
was  set  for  her  marriage  to  take  place  at  the  home  of  Mrs.  L. 
Owing  to  the  unusual  romantic  conditions,  great  interest  was 


302  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

evinced  by  her  friends,  who  all  helped  with  the  making  of 
her  trousseau.  Mrs.  L.'s  little  daughter  was  to  accompany 
her  to  Europe  for  a  short  visit.  A  short  time  before  the 
wedding  day  word  came  from  Mr.  C.  that  certain  conditions 
had  arisen  to  prevent  him  from  coming  over,  but  he  had 
made  proper  arrangements  for  the  marriage  to  take  place 
in  his  own  home.  Although  this  came  as  a  great  blow  to 
the  governess  and  her  friends  the  plans  were  changed  and 
accommodations  secured  on  the  steamer  for  the  governess, 
child  and  rector.  They  went  into  the  city  to  spend  the  night 
in  a  hotel  because  the  steamer  sailed  in  the  morning.  It  was 
in  the  morning  that  she  confessed  that  it  was  a  fascinating 
story  that  she  had  woven  in  her  brain.  Her  relatives  were 
sent  for  and  she  was  sent  to  a  sanitarium. 

There  was  a  somewhat  similar  case  reported  in  the  news- 
papers some  years  ago  of  a  woman  who  continued  with  her 
fancies  to  the  supposed  wedding  day,  when  she  received  a 
telegram  that  the  fiance  met  with  an  accident  in  Chicago. 
She  went  to  Chicago,  bought  a  corpse  and  brought  the  dead 
body  of  her  imaginary  lover :  it  was  the  only  way  in  which 
she  could  terminate  the  fancy. 

I  have  known  also  personally  the  case  of  a  young  lady 
who  would  become  seriously  depressed  and  ill  every  time  she 
heard  of  an  engagement  or  some  love-affair  among  the  girls 
of  her  acquaintance.  On  a  number  of  occasions  she  would 
actually  go  to  the  length  of  writing  to  the  prospective  groom 
informing  him  as  matters  of  fact  what  she  merely  spun  in 
her  imagination.  She  would  tell  the  young  man,  for  instance, 
that  his  fiancee  had  been  living  with  another  man  for  such 
and  such  a  time ;  she  would  give  details  such  as  the  city 
in  which  the  woman  lived  and  the  name  under  which  she 
went.  Of  course  she  caused  a  good  deal  of  mischief.  In 
one  such  case,  a  young  lady  estranged  fifteen  couples,  in- 
cluding her  own  sister.    She  always  managed  to  secure  data 


FAIRY  TALES  303 

which  could  be  corroborated.  Of  course,  when  a  man  is 
jealous  all  he  needs  is  the  slightest  suspicion  to  build  up  a 
powerful  case. 

Another  pernicious  result  of  fairy  stories  is  that  they  lay 
the  foundation  for  compulsive  symptoms  of  obsessions.  As 
you  know,  everything  in  fairy  stories  is  done  by  threes,  and 
I  have  seen  many  people  who  carried  along  this  superstition 
with  them  through  their  lives.  Thus  my  attention  has  re- 
cently been  drawn  to  the  case  of  a  mine  inspector  who  began 
to  talk  of  things  in  multiples  of  three.  He  would  get  out 
600  tons  a  day,  300  mine  cars  and  12  railroad  cars;  one  day 
he  told  the  shipping  clerk  that  the  mine  would  get  out  900 
tons,  whereas  it  only  put  out  the  usual  500  tons.  He  applied, 
for  instance,  for  three  more  motors  and  thirty  new  trans- 
portation men,  he  insisted  that  the  mine  was  good  for  600 
mine  cars  a  day  and  that  in  three  weeks  it  would  be  the  best 
mine  in  the  state.  This  compulsive  thinking  in  threes  was 
carried  over  also  to  his  home  life.  When  his  wife  became 
pregnant,  for  example,  he  was  sure  she  would  have  three 
children.  Analysis  showed  definitely  that  the  obsession  went 
back  directly  to  the  influence  of  fairy  tales. 

I  have  reported  the  following  dream  of  a  woman:  "She 
saw  three  long  neck  bottles.  One  was  almost  broken  to 
pieces,  the  second  cracked  and  the  third  contained  sparkling 
champagne."  The  dreamer  was  a  widow  of  42  years  of  age, 
who  informed  me  that  as  far  back  as  she  remembers  all  her 
important  affairs  in  life  went  by  threes.  Before  her  mar- 
riage she  acted  toward  her  suitors  in  the  same  way:  she 
never  expected  very  much  of  the  first,  regarded  with  greater 
favor  the  second,  and  expected  to  marry  the  third.  Her 
husband  had  to  propose  three  times  before  she  would  marry 
him.  If  she  accidentally  broke  a  dish,  for  instance,  she  bad 
no  rest  until  she  broke  two  more,  so  that  she  accordingly 
always  had  on  hand  some  discarded  bottles  which  served  that 


304  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

purpose.  In  the  light  of  her  obsession  the  significance  of 
the  dream  is  evident.  The  three  long  necked  bottles  are 
symbolic  of  men.  Her  dead  husband  is  represented  by  the 
broken  bottle,  the  man  who  was  her  lover  for  years  after  her 
husband's  death  is  represented  by  the  cracked  bottle,  while 
the  third  one  containing  sparkling  champagne  is  meant  to 
represent  the  man  who  was  paying  her  attention  at  the  time 
of  the  dream.  The  champagne  in  the  bottle  is  doubly  de- 
termined; it  symbolizes  the  quality  of  the  man  and  is  an 
allusion  to  alcoholism  to  which  they  were  both  addicted. 
Analysis  revealed  that  this  number-three  ceremonial  was 
determined  by  the  fairy  stories  she  used  to  hear  and  read 
since  childhood,  especially  the  following  one  which  she 
consciously  took  as  a  model.  It  is  the  story  of  a  princess 
whom  her  father  had  placed  in  a  castle  on  top  of  a  steep 
glass  mountain.  The  knight  who  succeeded  in  reaching  the 
top  on  his  horse  was  to  receive  her  in  marriage.  The  young- 
est of  three  brothers  finally  reached  the  top  of  the  mountain 
in  the  third  attempt  and  married  the  princess. 

Fairy  tales  are  also  very  harmful  to  the  normal  psychic 
development  because  they  are  primitive  and  archaic  modes 
of  expression ;  and  catering  as  they  do,  to  the  primitive  im- 
pulse, they  encourage  primitive  modes  of  thought  and  action 
in  the  individual.  Upon  analysis  we  find  that  they  all  prac- 
tically fall  into  the  categories  that  we  find  when  we  reduce 
sex  to  its  various  components  or  partial  impulses.  I  have 
drawn  your  attention  already  to  the  components  of  sadism 
and  masochism;  there  are  also  other  components,  such  as 
the  partial  impulse  to  look,  "sexual  curiosity,"  as  it  is  com- 
monly designated,  and  the  partial  impulse  to  touch,  both  of 
which  components  we  noted  in  discussing  the  tendency  wit. 
Fairy  tales  are  based  upon  these  partial  components,  par- 
ticularly upon  the  sadistic  and  masochistic  impulses.  They 
present  a  state  of  the  most  primitive  type:  the  individual 


FAIRY  TALES  305 

either  kills  or  is  killed,  he  actually  takes  delight  in  producing 
horrors.  They  thus  have  the  most  pernicious  influence  upon 
the  child,  for  they  unfit  him  for  reality  by  feeding  his  imagi- 
nation on  modes  of  reaction  that  are  distinctly  out  of  har- 
mony with  civilization. 

Mr.  N.'s  case,  which  I  have  reported,  may  help  you  to  see 
to  what  a  surprising  degree  the  individual  may  be  influenced 
by  fairy  stories.  The  patient  was  considered  most  peculiar : 
he  often  carried  a  revolver  with  him,  he  yearned  for  those 
times  when  everybody  carried  the  dirk  and  dagger  and 
could  kill  when  oflFended.  He  was  fascinated  by  wild 
animals,  especially  the  tiger  who  excited  him  to  a  marked 
degree.  He  spent  much  time  in  the  menagerie  in  front  of 
the  tiger's  cage,  and  when  unobserved  by  the  keeper,  he 
would  tease  the  animal  in  order  to  see  him  jump  and  hear 
him  roar.  ...  A  fancy  which  often  recurred  to  him  was 
the  following:  "I  am  annoyed  and  angered  by  some  one  to 
such  an  extent  that  I  run  wild  and  bite  everybody  that  comes 
in  my  way,  until  I  bite  my  way  into  some  person's  body!" 

Very  soon  after  entering  into  the  patient's  psychic  de- 
velopment I  noticed  that  his  symptoms  were  largely  deter- 
mined by  fairy  stories,  fables,  and  myths.  Thus,  his  sadism 
and  other  symptoms  unmistakably  showed  an  archaic  setting. 
The  associations  to  almost  all  his  dreams  showed  how  all  his 
inner  environments  corresponded  more  to  a  world  as  de- 
scribed by  Andersen,  Grimm,  Lang  an^  others  than  to  our 
present  times.  The  following  dream  fragment  with  its  as- 
sociations will  show  this : 

"On  Fifth  Ave.  with  a  crowd  of  people  looking  at  a  tiger. 
Whenever  the  animal  comes  my  way  I  Hy  up  to  the  roof 
of  a  neighboring  house."  Associations:  Flying  recalled  that 
as  a  child  he  often  entertained  many  wishes  to  fly  above  the 
clouds,  among  the  stars  and  planets.  This  recalled  his 
insatiable  interest  in  astronomy  at  the  age  of  seven  to  eight 


3o6  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

years.  At  about  the  same  period  or  even  earlier  he  was 
keenly  interested  in  trees ;  he  was  very  eager  to  know  where 
the  sap  came  from.  The  association  then  took  him  back  to 
a  still  earlier  period  of  his  life  when  he  was  interested  in  the 
bodily  functions  and  in  childbirth.  After  he  had  been  told 
that  children  grew  in  the  mother,  he  decided  that  they  must 
come  out  like  a  passage  of  the  bowels.  This  caused  him  to 
take  special  interest  in  the  openings  of  the  body,  such  as  the 
mouth,  nose  and  anus.  The  interest  in  mysterious  openings 
was  later  projected  to  the  outer  world,  so  that  he  was  strongly 
attracted  to  caves.  This  unusual  interest  was  facilitated 
by  many  fairy  stories,  especially  the  ones  concerning  the 
twelve  princes  who  were  called,  One,  Two,  Three,  Four,  etc., 
to  Twelve,  who  went  down  to  the  bowels  of  the  earth  and 
then  became  rabbits  and  burrowed  their  way  up.  From  very 
early  childhood  the  patient  imagined  himself  flying  and 
beheading  monsters  above  the  clouds,  or  penetrating  to  the 
center  of  the  earth  in  the  form  of  some  wicked  magician,  all 
the  time  passing  through  the  most  harrowing  scenes.  By  a 
process  of  condensation  he  fused  ancient  characters  and 
episodes  with  persons  and  actions  of  reality,  but  all  his 
fancies  usually  began  with  some  god  or  demon-like  myth 
and  gradually  descended  to  human  beings. 

As  I  went  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  analysis  I  became 
more  and  more  impressed  with  the  fact  that  all  his  associa- 
tions were  explained  by  some  fairy  tale  or  myth.  Thus  the 
flying  was  not  only  determined  by  flying  fancies  but  recalled 
also  the  story  of  Perseus,  who  undertook  an  expedition 
against  the  Islands  of  the  Gorgons. 

There  is  no  denying  that  this  is  a  unique  case;  but,  al- 
though I  have  not  seen  another  psychoneurotic  with  such  a 
pronounced  archaic  make-up,  I  have,  nevertheless,  observed 
many  persons  who  showed  the  same  mechanisms  in  a  lesser 
degree.     I  have  reported  numerous  cases  that  very  clearly 


FAIRY  TALES  307 

show  the  direct  harmful  effects  of  sadistic  and  masochistic 
reading  material  in  childhood.  Wanke  justly  asks:  "Of 
what  benefit  is  it  for  the  child  to  read  fairy  stories  where 
there  is  so  much  about  murder  and  killing,  and  where  human 
life  is  treated  in  the  most  careless  manner  as  if  it  amounted 
to  nothing?  What  does  the  child  gain  by  reading  about 
criminal  acts  which  bring  no  serious  consequences  on  the 
person  perpetrating  them?" 

Moreover,  even  those  individuals  who  do  not  continue 
with  the  primitive  impulses  as  far  as  sex  is  concerned,  who 
show  no  algolagnia,  remain  bad  dreamers  all  their  life  time, 
believing  in  the  unreality  of  life,  unable  to  appreciate  the 
real  value  of  hard  work  and  persistent  effort.  Having  been 
imbued  in  childhood  with  the  omnipotence  of  the  fairy  book 
heroes,  they  wish  to  be  like  them,  and  later  refuse,  or  find  it 
difficult,  to  become  plain  citizens  struggling  for  existence. 
Such  individuals  are  constantly  wishing  for  the  unattainable 
that  could  only  be  gotten  through  some  of  the  charms  of 
fairyland,  such  as  magic  boots,  invisible  caps,  Aladdin's 
Lamp,  and  so  on.  It  is,  therefore,  no  wonder  that  such 
persons  are  unhappy  as  adults  and  think  themselves  out  of 
place  among  ordinary  mortals. 

That  such  an  attitude  of  detachment  from  the  actual  facts 
of  life  is  in  conflict  with  the  requirements  of  life  and  militates 
against  success  is  not  hard  to  see.  No  man  has  ever  accom- 
plished anything  in  life  who  was  not  a  man  of  action.  This 
holds  true  of  all  fields  of  endeavor,  even  of  art  and  literature. 
Unless  the  artist  or  poet  is  no  mere  dreamer,  he  can  hope 
to  produce  very  litde.  Marshal  Foch  in  his  "Strategy  of 
the  War"  sums  up  the  situation  very  well  when  he  says, 
"You  can  understand  that  when  a  man  of  ordinary  capacity 
concentrates  all  his  thoughts  and  studies  upon  a  single  object, 
and  labors  unceasingly  to  accomplish  it,  he  stands  a  chance 
for  success.    Certain  conditions  are  essential  in  order  to  be 


3o8  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

a  force  in  the  world.  A  man  must  be  objective  and  not 
subjective.  A  man  of  action  must  not  waste  time  in  dreams. 
Only  facts  count;  you  must  stick  to  facts."  And  so  every 
man  who  has  made  his  mark  in  the  world  has  had  to  learn 
to  cope  with  facts,  to  meet  reality  face  to  face.  The  sooner, 
therefore,  our  boys  and  girls  are  freed  from  the  influence  of 
fairy  tales  the  better.  As  for  the  fear  expressed  by  some 
people  that  abolishing  fairy  tales  will  stifle  and  impoverish 
the  imagination,  let  us  remember  that  there  is  plenty  of 
material  for  the  imagination  in  nature  and  life  with  which 
the  child  can  actually  come  in  contact  and  from  which  he 
can  derive  wholesome  pleasure  and  instruction  at  the  same 
time. 

From  what  we  have  seen  of  fairy  tales  we  may  say  that 
they  represent  essentially  distorted  fancies  emanating  from 
archaic  modes  of  thinking.  The  child  with  its  infantile 
wishes  and  desires  runs  riot,  as  it  were,  in  the  realm  of 
reality.  Because  it  has  not  as  yet  learned  to  value  the  facts 
of  time,  space,  and  mortality,  it  operates  with  invisible  caps, 
magic  horses  and  other  phantastic  creations.  As  the  indi- 
vidual grows  older,  however,  reality  becomes  more  burden- 
some and  forces  him  to  repress  those  archaic  mechanisms. 
He  then  realizes  that  only  through  reality  can  he  attain  his 
wishes  and  desires,  and  sublimates  those  primitive  impulses 
through  the  various  forms  of  occupations  which 
Pro-  we  shall  discuss  later.     Here,  I  merely  wish  to 

touch  more  or  less  briefly  upon  a  form  of  sublima- 
tion as  found  in  the  so-called  artistic  productions. 

Every  child  is  an  artist  in  the  making.  When  our  little 
girl  drew  the  picture  of  the  little  cart  when  she  found  she 
could  not  actually  possess  the  desired  toy,  she  made  her  first 
debut  into  the  artistic  world.  In  this  simple  illustration  we 
see  at  once  the  purpose  that  art  fulfills :  by  its  means  one  is 


FAIRY  TALES  309 

able  to  realize  his  inner  strivings  and  desires.  Similarly, 
when  a  premature  thawing  of  tlie  snow  prevents  a  little  girl 
from  trying  out  her  new  sled,  thus  depriving  her  of  her 
keenly  expected  pleasure,  she  produces  a  picture  of  children 
coasting  and  frolicking  on  the  new  fallen  snow,  which  is 
declared  by  artists  to  be  a  fine  artistic  production.  The  draw- 
ing represented  the  desired  condition  and  thus  fulfilled  the 
little  girl's  wish.  Similarly,  we  may  say  that  Pygmalion  was 
in  love  with  Galatea  long  before  he  fashioned  her  out  of 
ivory  and  that  it  was  the  impulse  to  possess  Galatea  that 
caused  the  talented  Pygmalion  to  chisel  her  out  of  ivory. 
The  wish  is  father  to  the  artistic  production,  and  we  may 
say  that  every  artist  is,  as  it  were,  a  Pygmalion.  In  brief, 
the  artistic  production,  like  the  dream  and  the  symptom  is 
a  wish  fulfillment  emanating  from  unconscious  sources.  By 
virtue  of  his  talent  the  artist  can  embody  on  canvas,  or  in 
relief  or  in  sound  those  unattainable  urgings  which  the 
average  individual  experiences  also  but  is  able  to  express 
only  through  the  medium  of  dreams,  day-dreams,  fancies 
and  lies.  It  is  well  known  also  that  what  we  would  consider 
impossibilities  verging  on  the  infantile  or  on  insanity  have 
been  put  into  operation  by  individuals  who  were  able  to 
do  so.  For  example,  Nero's  Golden  Statue  is  an  attempt 
at  his  personal  deification,  and  it  is  significant  that  Alexander 
the  Great  was  seriously  thinking  of  making  a  statue  of  his 
own  person  out  of  the  whole  of  Mount  Athos, 

As  we  tried  to  point  out  on  another  occasion,  the  difference 
between  the  artistic  production  and  the  other  modes  of  wish 
fulfillment  such  as  dreams,  symptoms,  lies,  etc.,  may  be  said 
to  lie  in  the  fact  that  the  latter  are  purely  personal  expres- 
sions having  no  interest  whatsoever  for  the  outside  world, 
whereas  the  artistic  production  has  a  distinct  social  character 
and  offers  a  source  of  pleasure  and  gratification  to  artist  and 
audience  alike.    The  symptom  or  dream  is  a  distinct  personal 


310  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

outlet,  but  through  the  artistic  production  the  audience  be- 
comes identified  with  the  artist,  as  it  were,  and  partakes  of 
the  original  source  of  gratification. 

Our  conception  of  the  artistic  production  as  an  expression 
of  inner  strivings  and  wishes  is  not  altogether  new,  for  we 
find  it  expressed  in  one  form  or  another  in  ancient  and 
modern  literature  alike.  Thus,  we  at  once  think  of  Aristotle's 
famous  theory  of  poetry  and  drama  as  a  form  of  catharsis. 
In  modern  times,  we  have  a  noted  representative  of  this  same 
view  in  Goethe,  who,  as  Pater  says,  "escaped  from  the  stress 
of  sentiments  too  strong  for  him,  by  making  a  book  about 
them."  The  great  poet's  "Werthers  Leiden"  illustrates  the 
point. 

It  is  significant  that  even  individuals  who  show  no  artistic 
talent  in  daily  life  suddenly  display  remarkable  ability  in 
such  directions  when  they  become  insane.  I  have  in  my 
possession  a  remarkable  collection  of  artistic  creations  in 
painting,  sculpture  and  belles-lettres  produced  by  individuals 
who  were  never  known  to  possess  any  artistic  talent  and  who, 
as  far  as  I  could  investigate,  never  made  any  attempt  to 
express  themselves  artistically.  Thus  I  can  mention  a 
grocer  who,  in  his  insanity,  wrote  erotic  poetry  of  consid- 
erable merit,  and  a  cook  who,  in  the  same  condition,  produced 
embroideries  which  a  number  of  artists,  upon  careful  exami- 
nation, pronounced  as  excellent  productions  of  the  Byzantine 
period.  To  be  sure,  a  great  many  of  the  insane  productions 
seem  meaningless  and  phantastic  on  superficial  examination, 
but  to  one  acquainted  with  the  patient's  history,  they  are 
full  of  meaning  and  significance.  The  same  holds  true  of 
the  best  masterpieces:  to  appreciate  them  fully  it  is  often 
necessary  to  have  a  knowledge  of  the  artist's  inner  conflicts 
and  problems.  In  this  respect,  psychoanalytic  study  is  par- 
ticularly helpful,  for  it  reveals  to  us  the  hidden  sources  of 
the  artist's  influence.    Sufficient  investigation  has  been  done, 


FAIRY  TALES  311 

for  instance,  to  enable  us  to  say  that  Leonardo  da  Vinci's 
characteristic  smile  which  one  observes  not  only  in  the  Mona 
Liza,  but  also  in  his  Saint  Ann,  Saint  Tvlary  and  John  the 
Baptist,  is  in  all  probability  a  vague  reminiscence  of  his 
mother's  smile.  In  his  interesting  little  book,  on  Leonardo 
da  Vinci,  Prof.  Freud  has  thrown  much  light  on  the  great 
artist's  inner  life  and  problems  and  those  of  you  who  are 
interested  in  the  relation  the  great  painter's  work  bears  to 
his  mother's  influence,  would  do  well  to  read  it.  This  inti- 
mate relationship  that  we  observe  in  this  particular  case 
between  the  artist's  life  and  work  is  seen  also  in  sculpture 
and  belles-lettres.  Some  striking  examples  of  this  are  "David 
Copperfield,"  which  is  a  picture  of  Dickens'  own  life, 
Goethe's  "Werthers  Leiden,"  which  describes  some  of  the 
emotional  difficulties  experienced  by  the  young  author  him- 
self, etc. 

But  the  difference  between  the  insane  and  the  sane  pro- 
duction lies  in  the  fact  that  most  of  the  insane  productions 
are  expressions  of  desires  which  are  distinctly  egocentric. 
It  is  for  that  reason  that  the  average  person  sees  very  little 
meaning  in  them.  He  is  unable  to  put  himself  in  rapport 
with  them,  as  it  were.  On  the  other  hand,  when  we  look 
at  a  masterpiece  made  by  an  artist,  we  experience  a  definite 
feeling  of  esthetic  pleasure.  There  is  something  familiar 
in  the  piece  of  sculpture,  or  painting  or  literary  work  which 
touches  our  own  experiences.  It  seems  that  every  great  work 
of  art  has  a  universal  appeal,  and  that  is  why  perhaps  the 
great  masters,  like  Shakespeare,  have  no  limited  audience, 
but  are  enjoyed  to  a  greater  or  less  degree,  depending  on 
the  individual,  by  all  classes  of  people.  In  other  words,  we 
may  say  that  the  insane  production  is  usually  autocrotic,  it  is 
of  a  self-sufficient,  self-satisfying,  or  infantile  character, 
while  the  artistic  production  belongs  mostly  to  object  libido. 


312  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

The  artist  projects  into  the  outer  world  certain  feelings  and 
emotions  which  deal  with  object-love. 

It  is  on  this  basis  of  autoerotism  and  object  libido  that  we 
may  explain  why  most  people  see  nothing  artistic  in  so-called 
modern  art.  For  some  reason  or  other,  the  latter  productions 
belong  to  autoeroticism.  That  is  why  they  seem  to  most 
people  to  be  nothing  short  of  insane  productions,  and  as  a 
matter  of  fact  it  is  often  impossible  to  distinguish  one  from 
the  other.  There  is  no  doubt  that  if  we  were  to  compare 
side  by  side  some  characteristic  poem  of  a  representative 
iltra-modern  poet  with  the  verse  of  some  insane  patient, 
we  would  at  once  be  struck  by  the  marked  degree  of  sim- 
ilarity between  them.  It  is  thus  only  by  seeing  the  catalogue 
that  we  can  know  that  this  particular  ultra-modern  picture 
represents  a  nude  descending  the  staircase,  or  this  one  New 
York,  or  another  a  Spanish  village.  No  stretch  of  the 
imagination  could  reveal  to  one  what  the  artist  actually  meant 
to  express.  Information  obtained  from  the  artist  himself 
fully  corroborates  this  view.  As  one  of  their  spokesmen 
said,  he  did  not  care  whether  his  picture  meant  anything 
to  the  spectator,  it  represented  a  source  of  gratification  to 
him  and  that  was  all  that  he  was  trying  to  attain.  In  other 
words,  the  work  was  the  expression  of  an  artist,  but  not  an 
artistic  expression  in  the  strict  sense. 

We  may  thus  lay  it  down  as  a  general  principle  that  all 
expressions,  whether  normal  or  abnormal,  as  symptoms, 
dreams,  witticisms,  fairy  tales  and  artistic  productions,  may 
be  classified  as  infantile  or  adult,  or  as  autoerotic  or  object 
libido.  Inherently,  there  is  very  little  difference  as  far  as 
the  individual  is  concerned,  but  conceived  socially,  we  may 
say  that  only  those  productions  that  have  meaning  and  affect 
to  others  besides  the  artist  or  producer  himself  may  be  con- 
sidered normal. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
SELECTIONS  OF  VOCATIONS 

In  the  previous  chapter  I  tried  to  make  clear  to  you  that 
the  reason  why  I  object  to  certain  types  of  fairy  tales  is 
because  fairy  tales  are  offshoots  of  archaic  thinking  originat- 
ing in  antiquity,  and  because  they  are  products  of  uncon- 
scious wishes  symbolically  representing  those  primitive  im- 
pulses which  the  cultured  being  must  learn  to  repress  and 
sublimate  in  order  to  fit  himself  for  modern  life.^  Progres- 
sive civilization  depends  on  the  harnessing  and  controlling  of 
the  forces  of  nature  as  well  as  the  forces  of  the  individual, 
and  in  directing  these  forces  into  useful  channels.  A  fairy 
tale,  or  a  story  that  stimulates  any  of  the  partial  impulses 
or  components  of  sex  in  children,  may  impede  or  arrest  the 
normal  control  of  the  individual's  energy.  Sooner  or  later 
every  normal  human  being  must  give  up  many  of  his  natural 
prerogatives  and  become  part  of  the  society  he  lives  in.  He 
must  renounce  many  of  his  individual  desires  and  must  exert 
continuous  effort  for  the  common  weal.  That  is,  every  in- 
dividual must  contribute  something  to  the  society  he  lives 
in  by  adding  something  useful  to  it.  We  may  designate  such 
contributions  as  work. 

In  the  progressive  development  of  culture  this  mode  of 
activity  became  more  and  more  complex.  At  first  there  were 
almost  as  many  vocations  a?  men,  but  as  time  went  on  it 
was  found  necessary  that  many  persons  perform  the  same 

'  Brill :  "Psychoanalysis,  Its  Theories  and  Applications,"  p.  293,  W. 
B.  Saunders,  Philadelphia, 

313 


314  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

kind  of  work.  Instead  of  one  tailor  or  doctor  or  musician 
there  had  to  be  many  tailors,  many  doctors,  and  many  mu- 
sicians. In  other  words,  every  individual  has  been  allowed 
by  society  to  live  through  some  of  the  pleasure  principles, 
but  he  has  been  forced  to  adapt  himself  to  the  principles  of 
reality.  From  our  psychoanalytic  knowledge  we  recognize 
this  process  as  sublimation.  Every  activity  or  vocation  not 
directed  to  sex  in  the  broadest  sense,  no  matter  under  what 
guise,  is  a  form  of  sublimation. 

Now,  is  the  form  of  sublimation  followed  by  the  individual 
a  matter  of  accident;  in  other  words,  is  the  selection  of 
vocation  a  matter  of  chance,  or  is  it  governed  by  definite 
laws?  The  average  person  seems  to  consider  the  selection 
of  a  vocation  accidental  or  at  least  something  that  is  quite 
impersonal.  He  usually  assumes  that  given  certain  qualifi- 
cations, physical  or  mental,  or  both,  a  person  could  undertake 
any  kind  of  work  or  vocation.  This  view  is  evidently  held 
by  parents  who  usually  think  they  are  best  qualified  to  select 
their  children's  vocation,  and  by  professional  vocational 
guides  who  have  reduced  it  all  to  a  sort  of  mathematical 
formula.  They  examine  the  person,  discover  some  of  his 
attributes,  and  then  feel  presumptuous  enough  to  tell  him 
what  he  is  fitted  for.  Such  procedure  may  be  good  enough 
for  defective  persons  whose  power  of  sublimation  is  poor  in 
any  case  and  whom  a  certain  amount  of  suggestion  can  in- 
fluence at  least  for  a  time.  But  does  a  normal  person  need 
such  advice  and  does  such  advice  help  him?  Investigation 
shows  that  the  normal  individual  needs  no  advice  or  sug- 
gestion in  the  selection  of  a  vocation,  he  usually  senses  best 
what  activity  to  follow,  and,  what  is  more,  he  is  invariably 
harmed  if  advice  is  thrust  upon  him  by  a  person  of  authority. 
For  it  is  known  that  all  our  actions  are  psychically  deter- 
mined by  unconscious  motives,  that  there  is  no  psychic  ac- 
tivity which  does  not  follow  definite  paths  formed  in  the 


SELECTIONS  OF  VOCATIONS  315 

individual  since  his  childhood,  and  as  work  or  profession  is 
nothing  but  a  sublimating  process  in  the  service  of  hunger 
and  love  we  may  assume  that  it  also  must  be  guided  by  the 
individual's  unconscious  motives.  Investigation  has  con- 
vinced me  of  the  truth  of  these  assumptions. 

When  we  ask  a  person  why  he  follows  a  certain  vocation 
he  usually  answers  that  he  does  not  know,  that  he  just 
drifted  into  it  accidentally.  Occasionally  he  answers  that 
his  grandfather  and  his  father  performed  the  same  line  of 
work  and  that  he  followed  it.  On  applying  the  psycho- 
anal}i:ic  method,  however,  one  usually  finds  some  hidden 
reasons  for  the  particular  activity.  For  years  I  had  investi- 
gated in  this  manner  among  patients,  friends  and  strangers, 
and  though  my  findings  are  not  complete  I  feel  that  I  can 
furnish  a  preliminary  report. 

The  motives  which  actuate  one  to  take  up  a  certain  voca- 
tion vary  with  the  person,  that  is,  every  vocation  is  indi- 
vidually determined.  My  first  investigation  naturally  began 
with  physicians.  I  asked  of  my  confreres  why  they  took  up 
the  practice  of  medicine  as  a  vocation  and  from  the  many 
answers  obtained  I  shall  mention  some. 

Dr.  W.  stated  that  since  his  early  childhood  he  had  been 
surrounded  with  doctors  who  were  endeavoring  to  cure  him 
of  a  paralyzed  limb,  the  effects  of  infantile  paralysis,  and  as 
they  could  not  help  him  he  decided  to  become  a  physician 
and  cure  himself. 

Dr.  A.  recalled  that  as  a  child  he  suffered  from  boils  or 
carbuncles  and  was  taken  to  the  doctor  by  his  father.  The 
doctor  was  very  brutal  to  him,  and  very  inconsiderate  and 
almost  insulting  to  his  poor  father.  As  a  child  he  could 
not  understand  his  father's  humility  in  the  presence  of  the 
brutal  doctor,  as  his  father's  behavior  was  quite  different  in 
his  own  home.  This  impression  remained  permanently  fixed 
on  his  mind.    Whenever  he  was  punished  by  his  father  he 


3i6  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

thought  of  the  doctor  before  whom  his  father  trembled,  and 
as  a  small  boy  he  secretly  wished  he  were  a  doctor.  When 
he  became  of  age  he  realized  his  wish. 

Dr.  B.  had  no  idea  why  he  chose  medicine  as  his  profes- 
sion, but  finally  recalled  a  scene  from  his  early  childhood. 
He  overheard  a  conversation  between  his  mother  and  an- 
other woman ;  the  latter  looking  at  him  asked  his  mother  the 
month  of  his  birth,  and  when  told  that  it  was  the  month  of 
October  she  dryly  remarked,  "Poor  boy,  he  will  be  either  a 
doctor,  a  butcher,  or  a  murderer.  He  will  have  to  shed 
blood."  As  he  did  not  care  to  adopt  the  last  two  vocations, 
he  became  a  physician. 

Dr.  C.  told  me  that  as  a  boy  he  lived  near  a  slaughter 
house,  and  often  witnessed  the  killing  and  skinning  of 
animals,  which  greatly  fascinated  him.  Since  the  age  of 
eight  years  he  had  not  seen  the  slaughter  house,  and  these 
scenes  entirely  vanished  from  his  mind,  but  when  at  the  age 
of  sixteen  the  teacher  of  physiology  demonstrated  the  circu- 
lation of  the  blood  in  the  frog  he  became  very  interested  and 
decided  to  study  medicine. 

Dr.  D.  was  the  son  of  a  horse  dealer  who  was  also  inter- 
ested in  veterinary  surgery.  His  father  urged  him  to  become 
a  veterinary  surgeon,  which  he  set  out  to  do,  but  changed 
later  to  human  beings. 

Dr.  E.  was  the  son  of  a  butcher  whose  ambition  it  was 
that  the  son  should  follow  his  vocation.  The  latter,  however, 
insisted  upon  studying  medicine  and  became  a  learned 
anatomist. 

In  all  these  cases  the  sado-masochistic  components  were 
first  accentuated — in  Dr.  W.  through  his  own  suffering,  and 
in  the  others  through  early  impressions — and  later  sublimated 
in  the  profession. 

The  woman  who  associated  the  doctor  (surgeon)  with  the 
butcher  and  murderer  was  not  so  far  from  the  mark.    All 


SELECTIONS  OF  VOCATIONS  317 

these  activities  are  based  on  the  sado-masochistic  components, 
it  is  only  a  question  of  adjustment.  The  surgeon  and  the 
butcher  have  both  conquered  their  sadistic  impulses  and 
sublimate  the  same  for  useful  purposes.  The  former  repre- 
senting a  higher  state  of  mental  evolution  becomes  a  direct 
savior  of  human  beings,  while  the  latter,  not  so  much  en- 
dowed mentally  or  perhaps  having  lacked  the  opportunities 
for  further  mental  development,  still  helps  mankind  by 
butchering  the  animals  which  furnish  its  meat  supply. 

The  professions  of  prize  fighters,  wrestlers,  bull-fighters, 
warriors,  and  mighty  hunters  are  direct  descendants  of  pure 
sadism,  and  the  need  for  the  sadistic  outlet  is  well  shown  by 
the  popularity  of  these  vocations.  Those  who  witness  a  prize 
fight  soon  observe  that  the  whole  audience,  and  particularly 
the  votaries  of  the  manly  art,  actually  participate  in  the  fight. 
One  of  my  patients  told  me  that  whenever  he  goes  to  a  prize 
fight  he  has  to  sit  apart  from  every  one,  for  when  the  prize 
fighter,  who  is  his  favorite,  strikes  he  has  to  imitate  him. 
He  got  himself  into  trouble  many  a  time  for  hitting  his 
neighbors,  he  simply  could  not  control  himself,  and  to  avoid 
this  he  has  to  sit  away  from  the  other  spectators.  Others 
do  not  actually  strike  their  neighbors  but  they  shout,  yell, 
and  mimic  the  actors;  in  other  words,  they  identify  them- 
selves with  the  fighter  and  in  this  way  give  vent  to  their 
own  sadistic  feelings. 

Some  of  the  mechanisms  are  quite  different,  thus  I  know 
three  physicians  who  selected  this  profession  because  as 
children  they  were  jealous  of  the  family  doctor,  who,  they 
imagined,  stood  in  greater  favor  with  their  mothers  than 
their  own  fathers.  Quite  a  number  of  the  sons  of  my  lady 
patients  whom  I  treated  successfully  have  announced  their 
intention  to  study  medicine  and  take  up  my  specialty.  There 
is  a  tendency  on  the  part  of  the  sons  to  rival  their  fathers  or 
any   other    man    whom    their    mother    admires.     Tlie    last 


3i8  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

mechanism  is  also  observed  in  other  vocations.  I  know^  two 
sons  who  became  real  estate  agents  in  order  to  outdo  the 
man  with  whom  their  mother  was  in  love. 

The  profession  of  law  is  often  taken  up  as  a  reaction  to 
a  dishonest  act  committed  in  childhood  or  early  boyhood  by 
oneself,  by  parents,  or  by  some  immediate  member  of  the 
family,  as  brother  or  sister.  Such  persons  are  usually 
scrupulously  honest  lawyers  and  judges,  as  unconsciously 
they  always  feel  that  they  are  suspected  and  that  they  have 
something  to  atone  for.  Quite  often  it  is  an  unconscious 
effort  to  obtain  justice  for  oneself  as  a  result  of  an  injustice 
experienced  in  childhood. 

Mr.  C,  a  very  prominent  jurist,  had  no  idea  why  he  took 
up  the  study  of  law,  but  examination  revealed  the  following 
facts:  He  was  brought  up  in  a  religious  New  England  at- 
mosphere. His  mother  was  rather  nervous,  and  kept  her 
husband  and  children  in  a  very  repressive  state.  The  May- 
flower spirit  hovered  over  everything.  She  particularly 
objected  to  smoking,  and  for  years  quarreled  with  her  hus- 
band about  it,  until  he  was  forced  to  give  up  this  luxury. 
Her  two  boys  were  constantly  subjected  to  all  sorts  of  re- 
strictions. One  day,  while  waiting  with  other  children  in 
the  dressing  room  of  a  dancing  school,  they  noticed  a  burning 
cigarette  left  by  the  dancing  master.  The  older  brother, 
noticing  the  burning  cigarette,  which  stood  for  one  of  the 
strongest  taboos  in  his  home,  conceived  the  temptation  to 
violate  it,  and  not  having  the  courage  to  do  it  himself,  he 
turned  to  his  younger  brother  and  said,  "Charles,  I  dare 
you  to  take  a  puff  from  the  cigarette."  'T  will  take  one  if 
you  will,"  answered  Charles,  and  on  being  assured  that  the 
older  brother  would  follow  him  in  this  transgression,  he 
bravely  inserted  the  cigarette  into  his  mouth  and  took  the 
puff.  His  older  brother  thereupon  lost  his  courage  and  re- 
fused to  follow  suit.    And  what  was  more,  in  order  to  atone 


SELECTIONS  OF  VOCATIONS  319 

for  his  evil  thought,  he  told  his  parents  of  what  Charles 
was  guilty.  One  can  hardly  picture  the  fear,  remorse,  morti- 
fication, and  last,  but  not  least,  the  sense  of  injustice  ex- 
perienced by  the  little  boy  when  he  was  denounced  by  his 
parents.  The  mother  was  terrified  at  the  son's  crime,  and 
called  him  to  account  for  it.  Charles  experienced  a  deuble 
feeling;  to  confess  would  be  facing  his  mother's  terrible 
wrath,  and  to  lie  would  be  facing  the  wrath  of  heaven.  He 
chose  the  latter  and  stoutly  denied  his  guilt.  To  settle  the 
matter  the  parents  asked  him  whether  he  would  take  an  oath 
on  the  Bible  that  he  did  not  commit  the  crime.  Charles 
hesitated  just  a  few  seconds  and  then  stood  ready  to  take 
the  oath.  It  seems  that  the  parents  suspected  that  he  was 
guilty,  or  they  feared  to  use  the  holy  Bible  in  vain,  so  that 
instead  of  bringing  in  the  holy  book  they  brought  in  the 
Bible  stories,  upon  which  Charles  swore  that  he  did  not  take 
the  puff.  The  parents  probably  soon  forgot  the  episode,  but 
Charles  retained  an  everlasting  impression  of  it.  For  a  long 
time  he  felt  like  a  person  guilty  of  an  enormous  crime  against 
God  and  his  parents,  and  constantly  anticipated  some  terrible 
retribution ;  on  the  other  hand,  he  felt  that  a  great  injustice 
was  done  to  him  by  his  brother,  who  first  inveigled  him  into 
committing  this  evil  act,  and  then  betrayed  him.  In  time  this 
episode  was  forgotten,  but  the  small  boy  became  thoughtful 
and  serious  minded ;  as  he  grew  older  he  became  a  champion 
of  oppressed  classmates  and  gradually  decided  to  become  a 
judge.  When  he  graduated  from  college  he  took  up  the 
study  of  law  and  realized  his  wish. 

What  was  just  enumerated  was  discovered  during  the 
analysis  of  a  stereotyped  dream  which  appeared  on  two  oc- 
casions while  the  dreamer  was  under  an  anesthetic,  the  second 
time  after  an  interval  of  twenty  years.  The  dreamer 
imagined  that  it  was  the  Day  of  Judgment,  and  that  he  stood 
before  God,  who  asked  him  questions;  although  he  knew 


320  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

the  answers  he  refused  to  give  them  and  was  jeered  by  the 
multitude.  God  in  the  dream  was  his  father,  and  being 
examined  on  the  Day  of  Judgment  referred  to  the  episode 
just  related.  The  father  in  the  dream  as  well  as  in  daily 
life  is  often  substituted  by  the  Governor,  the  Mayor,  and 
by  God  himself.^  Mr.  C.,  who  is  now  about  fifty-five  years 
old,  had  no  conscious  knowledge  of  the  cigarette  episode  and 
the  part  it  played  in  his  life  until  his  dream  was  analyzed. 
When  he  finished  his  story  I  remarked  that  there  was  one 
other  vocation  that  he  might  have  taken  up,  the  ministry, 
because  in  my  experience  this  vocation  is  often  followed  by 
persons  who  unconsciously  feel  remorse  for  some  crime 
committed  in  childhood  or  as  a  reaction  to  temptations  in 
later  life.  He  confirmed  my  statement  by  telling  me  that  he 
was  in  doubt  as  to  which  of  the  two  vocations  to  take  up, 
and  if  it  were  not  for  the  fact  that  his  religious  feelings 
underwent  a  great  change  during  his  college  years  he  would 
have  become  a  minister  of  the  gospel.  He  was  undecided 
about  it  until  he  graduated  from  college — it  was  always  a 
question  between  the  ministry  or  the  law. 

Unconscious  and  sometimes  conscious  feelings  of  guilt 
and  remorse  as  a  reaction  to  real  or  imaginary  sins  are  often 
the  basis  of  theological  callings.  This  mechanism  is  clearly 
seen  in  such  religious  groups  as  the  Salvation  Army  and 
some  Missions,  li  one  attends  such  religious  meetings  one 
invariably  hears  confessions  such  as,  "I  was  a  thief  and  a  low 
sinner  until  I  saw  the  light  of  the  Lord;  two  years  later  I 
was  a  backslider,  but  again  I  found  Him,"  etc.  Some  of 
the  converts  fluctuate  all  the  time  between  heaven  and  hell. 
Here  the  maladjustment  is  so  marked  that  sublimation  is 
imperfect  or  almost  impossible ;  this  accounts  for  the  chronic 
backsliding  and  the  repeated  changes  from  one  religion  to 

*  Freud :  "The  Interpretation  of  Dreams,"  translated  by  A.  A. 
Brill,  The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York. 


SELECTIONS  OF  VOCATIONS  321 

another.  Only  a  few  months  ago  the  daily  press  reported 
the  case  of  a  clergyman  who  changed  for  the  third  time  from 
one  denomination  to  another. 

I  know  a  similar  case  of  a  man  who  fluctuates  between 
fervent  Evangelism  and  extreme  Atheism.  He  is  a  morbidly 
religious  person  who  is  making  desperate  efforts  to  adjust 
himself,  and  depending  on  the  reaction  of  the  time  he  either 
preaches  the  gospel  or  the  non-existence  of  God.  I  was 
also  impressed  by  the  number  of  dissatisfied  and  struggling 
homosexuals  who  follow  religious  callings. 

Sublimation  of  infantile  exhibitionism  ^  often  impels  one 
to  follow  the  stage,  the  army,  or  the  vocation  of  life  saver. 
The  actor  and  the  professional  soldier  are  sublimated  exhi- 
bitionists par  excellence;  the  latter  is  also  unconsciously 
dominated  by  a  strong  aggressive  component.  The  aggres- 
sive component  which  under  certain  conditions  changes  to 
sadism  is  found  in  the  sexuality  of  most  men.  "It  is  a 
propensity  to  subdue,  the  biological  significance  of  which 
lies  in  the  necessity  of  overcoming  the  resistance  of  the  sexual 
object  by  actions  other  than  mere  courting."  ^  This  com- 
ponent is  seen  throughout  life  in  its  sublimated  form,  one 
notes  it  in  the  aggressive  business  man,  in  the  lawyer,  in 
the  satirical  speaker  and  in  its  accentuated  form  in  the 
soldier.  Among  the  first  games  of  boys  one  invariably  finds 
the  playing  of  soldier,  and  the  need  for  such  outlets  is  readily 
seen  in  the  popularity  of  the  Boy  Scout  movement,  and  the 
admiration  that  has  been  bestowed  on  soldiers  from  time 
immemorial. 

Acting  also  belongs  to  the  earliest  games  of  children.  In 
fact,  most  playing  of  children  is  acting.  It  is  known  that  a 
great  many  nervous  people  are  good  actors;  they  are  natural 

*  Freud:  "Three  Contributions  to  the  Theory  of  Sex,"  p.  53 
Monograph  Series,  Journal  of  Nervous  and  Micntal  Diseases  Pub. 
Co. 

'Ibid.,  p.  22. 


322  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

actors.  Hysterical  persons  can  imitate  almost  anything; 
they  are  the  best  tragedians  as  well  as  the  best  comedians. 
And  if  we  consider  the  nature  and  mechanism,  namely,  the 
inability  to  adjust  or  fix  properly  one's  libido,  we  can  readily 
understand  the  psychology  of  the  actor.  The  actor  utilizes 
this  very  inferiority  as  a  sublimation.  Actors  are  persons 
who  are  usually  unable  to  fix  properly  their  libido.  Due  to 
some  unconscious  disturbance  their  emotional  transference 
is  more  or  less  inhibited,  so  that  they  are  unable  to  develop 
fixed  characteristics;  they  remain  more  or  less  infantile  and 
are  therefore  able  to  identify  themselves  with  the  great 
characters  they  represent  on  the  stage;  they  are  still  mould- 
able,  as  it  were.  That  accounts  for  some  of  the  characteristic 
traits  of  the  actor.  I  refer  to  the  sexual  maladjustment  as 
evinced  in  uninhibited  morality  and  marital  unsteadiness 
which  have  been  attributed  to  stage  folks  in  all  lands  and  at 
all  ages.  To  be  rigid  or  at  least  regular  in  the  sense  of  fol- 
lowing the  dictum  of  society  in  one's  sex  life  presupposes  a 
well-adjusted  and  fixed  libido.  Now  I  do  not  wish  to  imply 
that  the  actor  is  to  be  considered  inferior  because  he  mani- 
fests this  maladjustment  of  his  love  life;  on  the  contrary  he 
has  the  courage  to  put  in  operation  what  the  average  person 
secretly  desires.  That  is  why  we  admire  the  actor,  and  that 
accounts  for  the  popularity  of  plays  which  deal  with  the 
primitive  impulses.  They  ofifer  us  a  mental  catharsis,  we 
cry  and  laugh  at  the  play  because  we  identify  ourselves  with 
the  actor,  to  wit,  with  the  hounded  rogue  or  ideal  hero, 
whom  he  represents.  The  actor's  identification  with  the 
stage  character  is  well  illustrated  by  the  following  story. 
An  admirer  of  the  great  actor  Booth,  after  witnessing  his 
wonderful  performance  of  King  Lear,  asked  the  famous 
tragedian  to  explain  the  secret  of  his  skillful  rendition  to  this 
character.  Booth,  turning  very  abruptly,  responded,  "Sir, 
I  am  Lear." 


SELECTIONS  OF  VOCATIONS  323 

It  is  due  to  the  same  mechanism  that  only  few  great  actors 
have  ever  produced  original  works  that  could  lay  claim  to 
individuality.  They  are  so  used  to  identify  themselves  with 
their  stage  characters  that  they  find  no  time  to  develop  a 
steady  and  fixed  character  of  their  own.  For  the  character  of 
a  person  is  nothing  but  the  sum  total  of  one's  past  im- 
pressions. 

My  own  investigation  with  life  savers  convinces  me  that 
most  of  them  take  genuine  delight  in  their  vocation  mainly 
because  they  love  to  display  their  well-developed  muscles. 
Professional  athletes  and  "sports"  are  dominated  by  the 
same  exhibitionistic  impulse,  most  of  the  latter,  however, 
unable  to  exhibit  themselves,  gain  pleasure  by  identifying 
themselves  with  the  actors  (ball  players,  fighters,  etc.). 

Some  of  the  vocations  can  be  traced  to  very  early  infantile 
sexual  traits.  Thus  I  know  of  a  maker  of  optical  instru- 
ments, a  successful  manager  of  a  big  camera  department, 
and  three  photographers  who  were  punished  in  childhood 
for  evincing  a  strong  curiosity  for  sexual  looking,  and 
although  they  did  not  become  voyeurs,  they  all  manifested  a 
strong  tendency  for  looking.  I  have  reported  the  case  of  a 
man  who  displayed  in  early  childhood  a  strong  per\'erted 
impulse  for  odors,^  who  became  a  successful  perfume  dealer, 
after  he  was  a  failure  in  two  other  vocations.  Uncon- 
sciously such  people  take  up  the  vocations  that  gratify  them 
in  a  sublimated  form.  The  reader  need  not  be  surprised 
and  shocked  merely  because  some  people  who  are  doing 
useful  work  merged  into  it  through  sexual  impressions  of 
childhood.  There  is  nothing  wrong  about  it.  Some  of  the 
most  sublime  institutions  in  this  world  liad  their  origin  in  sex. 

In  analyzing  a  man  who  became  rich  from  an  invention, 
or  rather  an  improvement  of  patterns  for  ladies'  apparel, 
I  found  the  following  facts :  He  was  brought  up  in  a  small 

'  Brill,  Loc.  cit.,  p.   135. 


324  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

settlement  in  very  poor  surroundings.  His  father  was  un- 
ambitious, apparently  not  a  very  strong  character,  while  his 
mother,  to  whom  he  was  very  much  attached,  was  a  very 
hard  working  woman  who  had  a  constant  struggle  to  keep 
the  wolf  from  the  door.  She  was  rarely  able  to  save  enough 
money  to  buy  new  clothes  for  the  children  and  herself,  and 
as  a  little  boy  he  was  often  moved  to  tears  when  she  bewailed 
her  sad  lot.  It  was  the  strong  wish  to  grow  up  and  work  for 
his  mother  which  later  guided  him  unconsciously  to  occupy 
himself  so  assiduously  with  things  relating  to  women's  ap- 
parel through  which  he  made  a  fortune. 

Some  selections  of  professions  are  quite  puzzling.  One 
wonders  why  some  people  take  up  the  heavy  brass  instru- 
ments or  the  bass-drum  in  music.  For  the  information  of 
some  it  may  be  said  that  the  players  on  these  instruments 
usually  have  as  much  knowledge  of  music  as  any  member  of 
the  band.  One  might  therefore  ask  why  they  prefer  instru- 
ments that  can  be  used  only  in  conjunction  with  a  band  and 
which  offer  little  if  any  outlet  in  any  other  way.  I  have  not 
had  the  opportunity  to  study  many  such  people,  so  that  I  am 
not  offering  anything  conclusive.  I  know  two  drum  players 
and  two  saxhorn  players. 

Mr.  T.,  a  drummer  in  an  orchestra,  told  me  that  as  a  little 
boy  of  4,  5,  or  6  years  he  was  very  anxious  to  have  a  drum ; 
the  neighbor's  boy  received  one  for  Christmas  and  he  begged 
his  father  for  one  and  cried  for  it,  but  the  latter  either  did 
not  wish  to  buy  it  for  him  or  was  perhaps  too  poor  to  do  so. 
One  evening  the  neighbor's  door  was  open  and  no  one 
seemed  to  be  home;  he  walked  quietly  into  the  house  and 
stole  the  drum.  He  hid  it  for  a  while,  but  as  he  could  not 
resist  the  temptation  to  beat  on  it  he  was  soon  caught  with 
the  goods.  The  punishment  was  severe  and  produced  a 
very  strong  impression.  At  the  age  of  seventeen  years  he 
began  to  study  the  violin,  and  a  few  years  later  he  joined 


SELECTIONS  OF  VOCATIONS  325 

an  amateur  orchestra,  playing  second  violin.  A  vacancy 
for  the  drummer's  place  then  occurred  and  he  volunteered 
to  fill  it.  In  a  very  short  time  he  became  such  an  accom- 
plished player  on  this  instrument  that  he  obtained  a  lucrative 
position  in  a  big  orchestra. 

Mr.  X.,  the  other  kettle  drum  player,  was  very  fond  of 
music  and  studied  it  for  years.  He,  too,  volunteered  to  take 
the  position  of  drummer  in  a  band  and  has  played  on  this 
instrument  ever  since.  Mr.  X.  came  to  me  for  treatment 
because  of  bash  fulness.  He  had  always  been  a  very  seclusive 
and  reserved  person  afraid  to  speak  to  people.  It  was 
impossible  for  him  to  put  himself  en  rapport  with  anybody. 
He  became  tongue-tied  whenever  he  came  in  contact  with 
people,  men  or  women.  When  he  first  came  to  this  city 
he  refused  to  live  in  a  boarding  house  because  he  was  afraid 
he  would  have  to  sit  at  the  same  table  with  people  who 
might  talk  to  him.  Before  taking  up  music  as  a  profession 
he  lost  his  position  in  an  office  because  he  was  unable  to 
talk  to  the  manager  of  his  department.  Here  the  drum  fits 
in  well  with  his  nature;  the  drum  is  not  an  instrument  that 
talks  along  fluently  with  the  other  instruments,  as,  e.g.,  the 
violin  or  clarinet ;  though  it  is  a  part  of  the  band  it  is  never- 
theless more  or  less  aloof  in  its  behavior  and  it  can  always 
be  heard  when  it  speaks.  In  the  case  of  Mr.  X.  it  served 
as  a  compensation  for  his  enforced  quietude. 

The  players  on  the  heavy  brass  instruments  showed  similar 
mechanisms  to  the  one  found  in  X.  One  observes  that 
people  playing  on  drums,  basses,  or  heavy  brass  instruments 
are  not  of  the  same  type  as  those  who  play  the  first  violin, 
and  are  altogether  difTerent  in  makeup  from  those  who  lead 
the  band.  They  are  often  people  who  for  some  reason  or 
other  must  stand  away  from  the  crowd,  who  are  not  very 
good  "mixers,"  but  would  like  to  be. 

I  have  spoken  to  a  number  of  people  who  were  rubbers 


326  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

in  Turkish  baths.  I  found  that  in  some  cases  the  vocation 
went  back  to  the  infantile  desire  for  touching,  in  others  it 
was  distinctly  pathological,  and  still  others  have  taken  up 
this  vocation  because  it  alleviates  their  own  physical  ailments. 
I  have  in  mind  one  man  who  has  been  a  "rubber"  for  about 
twenty  years.  He  told  me  that  he  suffered  from  rheumatism 
and  was  told  that  Turkish  baths  would  help  him ;  as  his  aches 
diminished  through  the  baths  he  decided  to  take  up  some 
occupation  in  the  baths  and  became  a  rubber. 

A  few  street  cleaners  have  also  been  examined.  Some 
were  seen  by  me,  and  a  few  by  former  patients  who  kindly 
volunteered  to  assist  me.  There  seem  to  be  two  types  of 
street  cleaners,  some  who  are  quite  old  or  incapacitated  to 
an  extent  that  they  are  unable  to  follow  their  former  voca- 
tions, and  others  select  street  cleaning  as  a  vocation  of 
preference.  The  latter  are  usually  clean-cut  men  of  about 
35  years  and  one  wonders  why  they  should  be  attracted  to 
street  cleaning.  Of  the  few  examined,  some  seemed  to  have 
retained  tlie  infantile  coprophilia  and,  like  children,  liked 
to  wallow  in  dirt.  One  of  my  friends  brought  me  a  report 
of  a  man  of  about  35  years,  a  street  cleaner,  who  described 
the  difficulties  he  had  to  encounter  to  obtain  this  position; 
that  he  had  to  pass  examinations  and  had  to  get  some 
political  influence,  etc.,  etc.  This  man  distinctly  stated  that 
he  "loved"  his  work  because  "I  love  to  see  the  water  flush 
the  streets  and  clean  them  through  and  through."  His  whole 
life  seemed  to  be  in  his  work,  as  he  described  it.  This  man 
recalls  Boitelle  by  Maupassant,  who  "made  a  specialty  of 
undertaking  dirty  jobs  all  through  the  countryside.  When- 
ever there  was  a  ditch  or  a  cesspool  to  be  cleaned  out,  a 
dunghill  removed,  a  sewer  cleansed,  or  any  dirt  hole  what- 
ever, he  was  always  employed  to  do  it."  Dr.  Karpas,  from 
whose  interesting  paper  I  am  quoting,^  states :  "Boitelle  was 

*  Karpas :   Freud's  Psychology,  New  York  Journal,  June  14,  1913. 


SELECTIONS  OF  VOCATIONS  327 

disappointed  in  love — he  was  not  allowed  to  marry  a  negress 
with  whom  he  was  deeply  in  love.  Thus  his  ungratified 
wish — to  marry  a  negress  who  was  forbidden  him  by  his 
parents  and  by  society — found  a  substitute  in  the  selection 
of  a  particular  vocation  which  was  likewise  dirty  and  dis- 
agreeable to  society." 

One  of  the  street  cleaners  who  came  under  my  observa- 
tion presented  almost  a  similar  mechanism.  He  was  an 
able-bodied  man  of  about  40  years  who  could  give  no  reason 
for  selecting  this  vocation.  When  asked  about  it,  he  said 
it  was  "as  rotten  and  dirty  as  any  other — what  does  it  matter 
what  you  do  ?"  He  was  an  avowed  anarchist  and  took  every 
occasion  to  decry  the  rottenness  of  our  social  system.  I 
heard  him  a  few  years  ago  at  a  public  meeting  where  he 
protested  against  being  forced  by  the  Street  Cleaning  De- 
partment to  march  with  a  dirty  broom  on  his  shoulder.  He 
was  fiery  in  his  denunciation,  to  the  extent  of  advocating 
violence.  I  was  unable  to  enter  into  his  intimate  life,  but 
may  we  not  assume  that  his  vocation  was  an  unconscious 
effort  to  clean  up  the  rottenness  of  society  which  seemed  to 
trouble  him  so  much?  I  have  no  doubt  that  had  we  been 
able  to  enter  into  this  man's  life  we  would  have  found  be- 
sides some  infantile  determinant. 

Besides  the  specific  forms  of  sublimation,  as  seen  in 
special  vocations,  one  also  notices  certain  modes  of  sublima- 
tion of  a  more  or  less  general  nature.  "Only"  children  and 
first-borns,  who,  by  virtue  of  their  positions  in  the  family, 
become  domineering  and  officious  ^  usually  select  the  vocation 
requiring  leadership,  such  as  teachers,  religious  and  political 
leaders,  while  the  youngest  child,  who  was  bullied  and 
intimidated  by  his  older  brothers,  is  generally  satisfied  with 
a  subordinate  position  in  life.  I  have  mentioned  only  very 
few  examples  of  the  mechanism  of  selection  of  vocation  that 

"Brill,  Loc.  cii.,  p.  279. 


328  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

have  come  under  my  observation,  but  these  suffice  to  show 
tlie  forces  that  one  generally  finds  behind  selected  vocations. 
There  is  always  some  psychic  determinant  which  laid  the 
foundation  for  the  later  vocation,  and  if  not  interfered  with 
the  individual  is  unconsciously  guided  to  express  his  sublima- 
tion in  that  particular  form.  It  makes  no  diflPerence  whether 
a  man  is  a  financier,  preacher,  actor,  physician,  cook,  or 
shoemaker,  provided  he  himself  has  selected  this  vocation  and 
was  not  forced  into  it  by  home  environments  or  social  con- 
ditions ;  he  will  find  his  proper  outlet  in  his  work  and  under 
normal  conditions  he  will  never  become  fatigued  by  it  or 
wearied  of  it.  Most  of  the  failures  in  life  are  due  to  the 
fact  that  one  tries  to  do  what  one  is  unfit  for  or  unwilling 
to  accomplish.  Incidentally,  I  wish  to  say  that  no  one 
ever  suffers  a  nervous  breakdown  from  overwork.  Of 
course,  I  am  not  referring  to  breakdown  as  a  result  of 
physical  factors  which  are  seen  among  workers  in  factories 
under  unsanitary  conditions,  but  to  the  so-called  nervous 
breakdown  as  a  result  of  overwork.  Strictly  speaking, 
these  maladies  do  not  exist.  When  one  investigates  such 
nervous  breakdowns  one  invariably  finds  that  many  of  them 
belong  to  the  psychoses ;  others  represent  well-developed 
neuroses  which  were  brought  to  the  surface  by  any  of  the 
provoking  agents  one  always  encounters  in  such  maladies, 
and  in  still  others  one  finds  that  the  work  or  vocation  was 
always  accompanied  by  severe  resistances,  and  that  instead  of 
representing  a  natural  outlet  it  was  monotonous  drudgery. 
When  one  takes  the  history  of  such  persons  one  finds  that 
they  were  always  more  or  less  discontented,  that  they  were 
in  constant  need  of  vacations,  and  were  always  ailing.  Con- 
tented workers  have  to  be  forced  to  take  vacations.  Vaca- 
tions as  commonly  understood  are  neurotic  fads  which  ad- 
justed persons  don't  want  and  which  are  of  no  benefit  to 
those  who  clamor  for  them.    The  fact  that  most  vacations 


SELECTIONS  OF  VOCATIONS  329 

really  cause  fatigue  shows  that  their  alleged  purpose  is  just 
a  blind.  The  adjusted  person  works  for  work's  sake — his 
vocation  represents  a  part  of  his  "cosmic  urge"  and  hence  he 
is  unable  to  stop.  That  answers  those  who  are  puzzled  why 
some  of  our  multimillionaires  continue  to  work  untiringly. 
It  is  surely  not  for  the  love  of  money,  as  most  think.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  are  cases  on  record  of  men  who  died 
soon  after  giving  up  lifelong  vocations. 

There  are  also  a  great  many  failures  due  to  the  fact  that 
people  follow  certain  vocations  for  which  they  are  mentally 
unfit.  Such  persons  are  usually  defectives  who  have  not 
enough  insight  into  their  own  ability  and  cannot  at  any  time 
sublimate  properly;  this  is  clearly  seen  in  their  love-life, 
wherein  they  evince  rapid  attachments  and  just  as  ready  de- 
tachments of  their  libido.  They  are  unable  to  fix  on  either 
the  love  object  or  vocation;  they  are  pathological  flirts. 
The  other  failures  are  due  to  exogenous  factors ;  not  a  few 
among  those  were  forced  into  their  vocations  by  some 
authority,  and  w^ere  then  prevented  by  conscious  or  uncon- 
scious circumstances  from  changing  to  something  else.  Such 
persons  merge  in  time  into  a  neurosis,  which  is  nothing  but 
a  manifestation  of  tlieir  inadequate  adjustment,  and  often 
enough  forces  them  to  give  up  their  work  and  take  up  some- 
thing else.  Unconsciously  physicians  have  always  sensed  this 
mechanism,  and  for  years  it  was  customary  to  advise  nervous 
patients  to  take  up  another  vocation  which  they  selected  for 
them.  Such  selections  were  invariably  doomed  to  failure,  as 
no  person  of  normal  mind,  even  though  neurotic,  should  be 
advised  as  to  the  selection  of  a  vocation.  The  few  attempts 
which  I  made  to  advise  patients  as  to  what  to  do  invariably 
proved  undesirable. 

Miss  R.,  a  school  teacher,  became  nervous  and  had  to  be 
rolled  in  a  chair  for  a  number  of  years.  After  being  treated 
for  quite  a  time  she  finally  recovered.     She  did  not  wish  to 


330  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

return  to  teaching  and  I  suggested  that  she  take  up  a  certain 
course  in  the  School  of  Philanthropy  at  Columbia  Univer- 
sity; I  felt  that  that  would  be  the  desirable  thing  under  the 
circumstances.  She  thought  it  was  a  splendid  idea,  and 
acted  upon  it  at  once.  I  did  not  see  her  for  a  few  weeks, 
when  one  day  she  called  upon  me  at  my  office.  She  was  in 
tears,  and  I  feared  at  first  that  her  symptoms  reappeared. 
After  I  calmed  her,  she  began  to  explain  that  she  hated  the 
course;  when  I  asked  her  why  she  continued  with  it,  she 
simply  argued :  "Well,  Doctor,  you  told  me  to  take  it."  In 
other  words,  here  she  was  struggling  along  for  weeks,  un- 
happy and  discontented,  because  I  took  it  upon  myself  to 
advise  her.  She  went  on  to  tell  me  that  though  she  could 
not  recover  all  of  her  tuition  fee,  she  was  quite  willing  to 
drop  the  course.  When  I  inquired  what  she  expected  to 
do  now,  she  told  me  that  she  would  like  to  make  lamp 
shades.  I  assure  you  that  was  the  last  thing  that  would  ever 
occur  to  me.  She  has  been  making  lamp  shades  ever  since, 
and  I  am  glad  to  say,  that  she  is  getting  along  very  well.  The 
point  is  that  she  is  happy  and  loves  her  work  simply  because 
it  was  her  own  selection. 

I  had  a  similar  experience  with  Mr.  S.,  who  was  con- 
siderably rich  and  philanthropic.  When  he  was  cured,  I 
urged  him  to  enter  some  occupation,  but  was  at  a  loss  as  to 
what  to  advise  him  to  undertake.  Dr.  Putnam  of  Boston 
happened  to  be  in  New  York  at  that  time  and  he  suggested 
that  inasmuch  as  the  patient  was  charitable  and  had  a  regular 
income  it  would  be  a  capital  idea  for  him  to  open  up  an 
office  and  mete  out  his  charitable  donations  himself.  I 
thought  it  was  a  happy  suggestion  and  I  imparted  it  at  once 
to  Mr.  S.,  who  was  quite  enthusiastic  over  it.  After  a  few 
weeks,  however,  he  came  to  me,  utterly  disgusted,  declaring 
impatiently :  "I  can't  do  the  damned  thing ;  I  hate  those 
people;  I'll  give  them  the  money  but  I  don't  want  to  talk 


i 


SELECTIONS  OF  VOCATIONS  331 

to  them."  When  I  asked  him  what  he  would  like  to  do,  I 
learned  that  he  had  been  thinking  of  entering  the  art  business 
which,  he  said,  he  loved  and  had  been  interested  in  for  years. 
I  discussed  the  plan  with  him  and  the  only  counsel  I  gave 
him  was  to  go  into  partnership  with  a  person  who  was  fully 
acquainted  with  the  strictly  business  end  of  the  undertaking. 
He  has  done  very  well  since  then  and  is  now  considered  a 
connoisseur  in  his  profession. 

As  in  the  selection  of  a  mate,  a  sensible  person  needs  no 
advice  and  wants  none,  and  fools  will  fail  in  spite  of  the  best 
guidance,  for  we  can  only  do  well  those  things  that  we  do 
with  our  hearts,  with  our  whole  souls.  The  people  who 
themselves  selected  their  vocations,  whose  cases  I  cited,  were 
successful  in  their  various  callings,  because  their  vocations 
supplemented  or  substituted  their  primitive  components. 
The  German  expression,  "Arbeit  macht  das  Leben  suss,"  is 
literally  true  in  cases  where  the  work  represents  an  outlet 
for  the  individual.  Tliis  is  true  of  all  vocations.  Those  of 
you  who  have  lived  abroad  and  frequented  the  less  preten- 
tious restaurants  remember  how  proud  a  French  or  Italian 
cook  is  of  his  or  her  special  dish,  and  how  pleased  the  host 
is  when  his  guest  enjoys  his  meal.  One  can  see  they  derive 
genuine  pleasure  from  iheir  work.  I  feel  that  the  restlessness 
and  dissatisfaction  among  our  working  classes,  which  often 
results  in  strikes,  is  not  altogether  due  to  the  causes  generally 
attributed  to  them.  It  is  not  so  much  a  question  of  money 
as  of  emotion.  Owing  to  the  many  inventions  which  have 
gradually  transformed  manual  labor  into  machine  work,  the 
laborer  no  longer  finds  the  same  interest  in  his  work.  The 
shoemaker  no  longer  makes  a  shoe,  but  as  a  hand  in  the 
shoe  factory  he  constantly  performs  one  simple  thing  which 
is  of  no  interest  to  him  and  which  soon  becomes  drudgery. 
When  one  compares  this  factory  worker  to  the  shoemaker  of 
yore  who  took  the  measurements,  selected  the  leather,  and 


332  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

then  put  his  whole  personality  into  the  making  of  the  shoe, 
one  can  understand  why  the  latter,  as  we  still  find  him  in 
some  parts  of  Europe,  is  a  much  happier  man. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  have  seen  many  perfectly  normal 
people  who  were  failures  in  life  simply  because  they  were 
not  allowed  to  follow  their  own  inclinations.  Instead  of 
being  prepared  for  life  in  general,  their  parents  felt  it 
necessary  to  accompany  and  guide  them  through  every  detail. 
Some  of  them  struggled  for  20  and  30  years  with  vocations 
which  their  fathers  imposed  upon  them  and  stopped  being 
failures  only  after  their  fathers'  death,  when  they  took  up 
something  which  they  really  liked. 

Thus  I  have  known  a  man  whose  father  compelled  him 
to  study  music,  despite  his  resistances.  When  he  completed 
an  excellent  education  in  music  in  this  country,  he  was  sent 
to  Berlin.  The  teacher  declared  that  he  possessed  technique 
but  lacked  warmth  and  emotion.  The  father  was  obdurate, 
and  insisted  that  the  young  man  continue  his  studies.  When 
the  son  reached  the  age  of  twenty-six,  however,  he  took  a 
full  breath,  as  it  were,  and  dropped  music;  thereafter  he 
turned  from  one  vocation  to  another,  only  to  be  compelled 
to  return  to  music  in  every  case.  He  continued  to  do  this 
until  his  father  died,  when  he  entered  the  insurance  business, 
in  which  he  is  now  doing  excellently. 

Likewise,  much  harm  is  often  done  by  parents  who  take 
it  upon  themselves  to  decide  the  child's  future  career.  I 
have  seen  a  boy  of  about  ten  or  eleven  years  old,  brought  to 
me  by  his  father  who  considered  him  incorrigible.  He  in- 
formed me  that  the  boy  refused  to  do  what  he  was  told,  took 
absolutely  no  interest  in  his  studies  and  flatly  insisted  on  not 
going  to  school.  I  examined  the  boy  and  found  that  he  was 
mentally  perfectly  normal.  When  I  asked  him  why  he  did 
not  wish  to  study,  he  said,  "Well,  I  don't  want  to  be  a 
lawyer."    "And  what  would  you  like  to  be?"     "Oh,  well," 


SELECTIONS  OF  VOCATIONS  333 

he  quickly  replied,  "I  would  like  to  raise  strawberries." 
When  he  was  in  the  country,  the  gardener  had  told  him  that 
there  was  a  good  deal  of  money  in  raising  strawberries ;  what 
was  more,  he  liked  strawberries  exceedingly,  and  so  he  de- 
cided to  make  raising  strawberries  his  life  work.  I  assured 
him  that  his  father  would  have  no  objection  to  it,  but  that 
he  would  first  have  to  learn  how  to  read  and  write;  upon 
which  he  went  on  to  say  that  if  his  father  would  promise 
him  that  he  may  raise  strawberries,  he  would  go  to  school. 
As  you  may  imagine,  the  father  perpetually  kept  on  dinning 
into  the  poor  boy's  ears  that  he  would  have  to  be  a  lawyer ; 
every  time  the  child  made  some  error,  he  would  zealously 
remind  him  that  "he  would  make  a  devil  of  a  lawyer."  The 
youngster  was  already  sick  and  tired  of  the  law  at  the  tender 
age  of  ten;  and  was  it  any  wonder?  I  then  called  in  the 
father  and  after  treating  him  for  a  little  while,  I  had  him 
promise  to  permit  the  youngster  to  raise  strawberries  in  July. 
The  boy  did  very  well  following  this,  and  when  summer 
came  he  at  once  set  about  realizing  his  ideal.  He  worked 
with  the  gardener  for  half  a  day,  when  he  grew  disgusted  and 
decided  to  drop  the  profession  altogether.  He  is  now  at- 
tending college.  This  boy  developed  so  many  resistances  to 
his  father  and  his  ideas  that  he  retaliated  by  simply  refusing 
to  do  anything.  The  parents  thought  that  he  was  vicious 
and  abnormal  simply  because  he  revoltcrl  against  a  vocation 
which  his  father  had  selected  for  him  from  the  very  begin- 
ning. It  is  highly  advisable,  then,  that  the  average  normal 
individual  be  permitted  to  select  his  own  vocation. 

When  we  look  back  upon  the  field  we  have  surveyed  in  this 
brief  course,  we  find  one  fact  standing  out  very  prominently. 
It  is  a  highly  significant  fact  and  wc  find  it  in  one 
form  or  another,  in  practically  every  subject  that 
we  have  taken  up.     Indeed,  wc  may  say  that  it  scrverl  as  a 


334  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

basis  for  our  whole  discussion, — the  fact  that  all  uncon- 
scious mentation  is  motivated  fundamentally  by  the  wish. 

We  began  with  the  symptom  and  we  found  that  in  the  final 
analysis  it  represents  the  realization  of  a  hidden  wish.  This 
we  observed  to  hold  true  not  only  in  the  field  of  the  neurosis 
but  in  the  field  of  the  psychosis  as  well.  We  saw  in  the 
very  first  case  that  I  cited  that  the  hysterical  symptom  in  the 
arm  was  a  compromise  between  two  psychic  streams,  the 
foreconscious  and  the  unconscious  respectively,  representing 
the  fulfillment  of  a  hidden  wish.  We  noted  the  patient's 
mental  conflict.  She  could  not  accept  the  young  man's 
failure  to  propose  as  proof  that  he  took  no  interest  in  her, 
yet  she  could  not  understand  why  he  should  not  propose. 
We  saw  how  her  state  of  marked  emotional  tension  was 
brought  to  a  climax  when  the  young  man  pressed  her  arm  on 
the  night  before  he  left,  and  how  it  was  this  emotionally  ac- 
centuated incident  that  she  wished  to  retain  in  memory.  For 
it  was  then  that  she  expected  he  would  say  the  long-expected 
word.  Analysis  revealed  that  it  was  this  marked  mental 
state  that  became  converted  into  the  pain,  that  the  hysterical 
symptom  was  but  a  concrete  expression  of  her  inner  wish. 

We  see  the  same  conversion  in  the  psychoses.  But  here, 
the  process  is  much  farther  reaching  and  more  violent  in  re- 
action ;  in  order  to  attain  his  wish,  the  individual  is  compelled 
to  tear  himself  away  from  reality  altogether.  We  tried  to 
make  this  clear  by  citing  several  cases.  We  saw  in  the  in- 
stance of  the  tailor  who  had  been  maltreated  by  the  farmer 
and  his  sons  an  attempt  at  first  at  a  solution  of  the  problem 
through  the  regular  channels  of  social  justice.  But  when 
this  failed,  he  tore  himself  away  from  reality  altogether,  real- 
izing his  desire  for  redress  in  his  hallucinatory  condition. 
We  saw  a  more  marked  example  of  the  same  condition  in 
the  case  of  the  young  woman  who  developed  delusions  of 
reference,  when  she  realized  that  she  had  lost  the  man  in 


SELECTIONS  OF  VOCATIONS  335 

whom  she  was  interested.  Here,  the  rationalizing  process 
which  was  quite  unconscious,  is  noteworthy.  Forced  to  the 
conclusion  that  she  lost  the  man  because  she  was  too  reserved 
and  moral,  the  patient  attempts  to  readjust  herself  to  the  new 
condition  by  imagining  that  she  really  is  immoral.  "He  left 
me  because  I  am  immoral :"  that  is  how  she  realizes  her  un- 
conscious wish. 

The  psychopathological  action, — the  slip  of  the  tongue,  the 
various  "little"  mistakes  we  make  from  day  to  day, — all  fol- 
low the  same  wish  tendency.  When  the  young  man  wrote 
"maternity"  instead  of  "fraternity,"  there  is  no  doubt  at  all 
that  he  expressed  in  that  way  what  was  uppermost  on  his 
mind :  his  ardent  wish  to  enter  upon  matrimony.  The  un- 
conscious never  lies.  When  a  young  woman  writes:  "From 
now  on  I  am  going  to  be  running  back  home"  when  she 
should  have  written :  "From  now  on  I  am  not  going  to  be 
running  back  home,"  we  may  be  sure  that  she  wishes  to  re- 
turn, and  other  things  being  equal,  that  she  will.  This  is 
borne  out  by  the  facts.  The  young  woman  in  question  was 
experiencing  many  conflicts  in  her  work  as  a  sales-person  for 
a  publishing  house.  The  letter  in  which  the  above  slip  oc- 
curred was  written  directly  upon  arriving  in  her  field,  which 
she  had  left  as  many  as  three  times,  only  to  return  again  on 
the  persuasion  of  her  field  manager.  The  letter  was  in- 
tended to  assure  the  manager  that  she  was  no  longer  ex- 
periencing any  mental  conflicts  regarding  the  work,  but  her 
mistake  showed  clearly  her  real  .state  of  mind,  for  a  week 
later  actually  found  her  back  again  home. 

The  examples  given  in  our  discussion  of  wit  show  con- 
clusively the  wish  motive.  This  was  particularly  shown  in 
tendency  wits  where  the  hostile  or  sex  wishes  always  show 
themselves.  When  we  come  to  dreams,  the  wish  motive  be- 
comes more  and  more  evident.  The  latent  content  of  the 
dream  invariably  expresses  a  hidden  wish.    The  individual 


336  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

craves  for  something,  but  as  he  cannot  attain  it  in  reality,  it  is 
reaHzed  for  him  in  the  dream.  I  am  not  going  to  stop  to  give 
any  examples;  the  numerous  dreams  we  have  cited  all  show 
the  wish  tendency  very  clearly. 

In  collections,  and  in  a  highly  more  sublimated  form,  in 
the  selections  of  vocations  also,  we  have  the  same  wish 
tendency  in  evidence.  Fairy  tales,  too,  as  we  saw,  follow  the 
same  trend :  they  are  poetic  productions  containing  some  wish 
which  the  individual  was  unable  to  realize  in  reality.  And 
finally,  all  normal  and  abnormal  artistic  expression  is  no  ex- 
ception to  our  rule,  for  in  the  final  analysis,  the  artistic  pro- 
duction is  nothing  but  a  wish  compromise,  emanating  from 
the  unconscious  mental  activity  of  the  individual  endowed 
with  talent. 


INDEX 


Abreaction 
meaning,  9 
example    14 
Actor,  as  exhibitionist,  321-323 
Adam   and   Eve,   significance  of 

story,  67,  209 
Adjustment,  30,   189,  191 
dependent   on   home   environ- 
ment, 223,  277 
in  relation  to  fairy  tales,  296 
in  the  neurosis  and  psychosis, 
35,  40 
Aggression,  sexual.  129,  130,  132, 

135 
"coprophilic"  wit  of,  135 
Agoraphobia    43 
Alexander  the  Great,  309 
Algolagnia,  307 
Ambivalency,  of  feeling,  322 
Amnesia,  posthypnotic,  16 
Andersen,  209,  210,  300,  305 
Animals,  identification  with,  232- 

240,  243 
Animism,  in  wit,   122 
Anticipation  dream,  174 
Anxiety.     (See  Fear.) 
Anxiety    dreams,    171,    172,    184, 

189,   192-194 
Anxiety  hysteria,  42,  43,  177,  182 
Aphasia,  49,  68,  75 
Aretaeus,  2 
Aristotle,  310 
Artificial  dreams,   195-200 
Artistic  productions,   308-312 
among  insane,  310-312 
autoerotism    in    modern,    311, 

312 
difference      between      dreams, 

symptoms,     etc.,     and     309. 

310 


Artistic  productions 
(continued), 
difference    between    sane    and 

insane,  311,  312 
infantile  expression  in  modem, 

62.  311 
relation  to  artist's  life,  310,  311 
similarity  of  modern  to  insane, 

312 
wish  in,  308-310,  336 
Athlete    as  exhibitionist,  323 
Autoerotic  love,   189 
in  insane  artistic  productions, 
311,  312 
Automatism,  in  wit,  119,  120 

Bacon,  289 

Barber's  pole,  significance,  6$ 

Baudesson,   Captain,  88 

Beard,  5 

Beechstein,  Ludwig,  299 

Behaviorists,  62 

Bell,  Sanford,  70 

Bernheim,  16 

Binet-Simon  tests,  63 

Bleuler,  52,  63,  89,  I97,  257,  258 

Roitelle,  326 

Booth,  322 

Brahma,  289 

Breuer,  7,  16 

Buddha,  289 

Burroughs,  John,  244 

Catatonic    (characteristics),  256. 

257 
Cathartic  method,  9,  12 
Censor   psychic,  225-227,  246 
Charcot,  6,  7 
Charnwood,  Lord,   134 
Chavan  Narischkin,  Countess,  103 
Christmas,  67 


337 


338 


INDEX 


Chronic  engagements,  psychology 

of,  223 
Civilization,   26,  27,  30,  32,   112, 
127,    130-132,    136,    161,    162, 
186,  187,  266,  313 
Collections,   psychology   of,    102- 

iio,  336  , 

Comparison,    basis    of    thinking, 

59-64,  68 
Complex, 
meaning    13 

"prostitution   complex,"  45 
"Complex  readiness,"  89,  go,  Q7 

case  of,  90,  gi 
Components,    partial,     128,     129, 

304,  .313,  316,   317,   321 
Compulsion  neurosis,  43 
Concealing  memories,  68-75,  ^79> 

182 
Condensation, 

in  dreams,   117,    125,    170,  224, 

225 
in  wit,   115-117 
Confucius,    289,   294 
Conscious,  the,  conception  of,  16, 

225,  226 
Consolation   dream,  227,  229 
Continuous    association,    18,    19, 

53  . 
Convenience  dream,  149 
Conversion,    12,    334 
Crepuscular    state     (of     sleep), 

140 
Criminal, 
in  relation  to  dreams,  158,  159 
related  to  liar,  207 
Crown  prince,  origin  of  institu- 
tion, 279,  280,  288 


"David   Copperfield,"  311 

Da   Vinci,    Leonardo,    219,   220, 

311 
Day  dreams,  195 
Death, 

dreams   of,  210-217,  221,   222, 

223-226 
significance  to  child,  210 
Defectives,    19,   26,   27,   62,    190, 

203,  329 


Delusions, 
distinguished  from  illusions,  39 
of  grandeur,  205 
of  reference,  45,  266,  334 
of  self-accusation,  286 
of  transformation,  239 
Dementia    pr?ecox,    28,    29,    191, 
253-261,  286 
difference    between    manic- 
depressive    insanity    and, 
263 
relation  to  normal  person,  278 
Determinant  of  dream,  140,  155, 

173.  192-195.  245,  248 
Dickens,  Charles,  98,  208,  311 
Diseases,    nervous    and    mental, 
2-7 
difference  between  nervous  and 

mental,  253 
Mental,      two      entities,      27- 
29 
Displacement,  69,   179,   185 
from  below  to  above,  172 
in  dreams,  125 
in  wit,  117-119 
Disraeli,  115 
Distortion, 
in   dreams,    I54-I57,    164,    165, 

226 
in  wit,   157 
Dostoyevski,  98 
"Double  entendre,"  151,   154 
Dream,  the,  139-252 

analogous    to    symptom,    176- 

182,  183 
anticipation,  174 
anxiety,  171,  172    184,  189,  191, 

192 
artificial,  195-200 
as  guardian  of  sleep,  147-151 
condensation  in,  117,  125,  170, 

224,  225 
consolation,  227,  229 
convenience,  149 
day  dreams,  195 
difference    between    wit    and, 

.137,  138 
displacement  in,  125 
distortion  in,  154-157,  164,  165, 
226 


INDEX 


339 


Dream,  the  (continued), 

determinant  of,   140,   155,  173, 

192-195,  24s,  248 
of  death  of  relatives,  210-217, 

221-226 
egocentric,  213,  249,  252 
manifoldly     determined,     240- 

252 
of  missing  train,  229 
examination,  226,  227 
exhibition,  209,  210 
falling,  230,  231 
flying,  229,  230 
function  and  motive  of,   139- 

183 
identification  with  animals  in, 

232-240,  243 
in  pubescent  age,   190,   191 
latent,    177,    178,    181-183,   247, 

250.  335 
"local,"  231,  232 
manifest,  177,  182,  250 
CEdipus,  214-217 
"prophetic,"  143,  144.  227,  228, 

229 
relation  to  unconscious,  23 
relation  to  wit,  137 
representation    through    oppo- 
site in,  125 
resemblance  between  wit  and, 

137 
resolution,  228 

sense  in  nonsense  in  ,  125 

stimuli,  internal  and  external, 

and,    140,    141,    143-146,    155- 

249 
strata  of,  175 
streams  of,  246 
wish     in,     23,     147-150,     153* 

155.    158,    159,    163-167,    171, 

184,   192,   193,   199,  210,  211, 

226,    228-230,    234,    244-246, 

252,  335.  336 
Dream  book,   140 
Dreamy  state  (of  sleep),  140 
Dressmaking,  art  of,  210 

Education,   160,    161,  237 
Ellipsis,  in  wit,   122 
Emerson,  265 


Empathic  index,  169,  170 
Environment,   21 

in  the  psychosis,  296 

relation  to  only  child,  279,  296 
Epilepsy,   psychic,   53,   54 
Equivalents,  psychic,  53,  54 
Erasmus,  289 
Erb,   Heinrich,  6 
Ethnic  symbols,  65-67,  152 
Elxamination  dream,  226,  227 
Exhibition  dream,  209,  210 
Exhibitionism,   128,   129,  321 

in  wit,  127 

Fairy  tales,  296-308 
as  emotional  outlet,  300 
pernicious    influences    of,   300- 

308,  313 
wish  in,  296-300,  308,  336 
Falling  dream,  significance,  230, 

231 
Fear,  43,  184,  185,  188,  189,  192 

of  burglars,  loi,  102,  185 
Fetichism,  meaning,  109 
Fixation,  upon  parent,  217,  281- 

284,  293 
Flying  dream,  229,  230 
"Folies  a  deux,"  form  of  insan- 
ity, 268 
"Folies  de  dout,"  43 
Foch,  Marshal,  307 
Foreconscious,    15,    16,    40,    225, 

226,  334 
Forgetting, 
concealing     memories,     68-75, 

179,   182 
of  names,  76-86 
psychology    of,    49-59,    68-74, 

75 
typical  case  of,  51-59 
Fortune    teller,    psychology    of, 

298 
Freud,    Sigmund,    i,    4-9,    14-18, 

20-24,  29,  30,  40,  46.  47.  49. 

51-53.  56.  69,  71,  76,  86,  98. 

no,   III,   127,   142,   146,   180, 

209,  214,  215,  287,  311,  320, 

321 
Frocbel,  289 
"Fugue,"  54 


340  INDEX 


Galatea,  309 
Galen,  2 
Galileo,  289 
Goethe,  310,  311 
Government.  136,  137 
Grant,  288 
Grimm,  299,  305 

Hallucination,  distinguished  from 

illusion,  39 
Handshake,    diagnostic   point    in 

dementia  praecox,  256 
Harmless  wit,  126,  133 
Harrison,  288 
Hayes,  288 
Hippocrates,  i 
Hobbies,  psychology  of,  102-110, 

336 
Homosexual,  321 

dream  of,  196 
Horseshoe,  origin  of  symbol,  109 
Hugo,  292 

Humor,  sense  of,  in  children,  164 
Hunger,  primary  impulse,  32,315 
Hypnotism, 

difference  between  psychoana- 
lytic method  and,   18 

in  mental  diseases,  6,  7 

in  relation  to  cathartic  method, 
89 
Hysteria,  i 

anxiety,  42,  43,  177,  182 

case  of,  7,  8 

crying  spells  in,  31 

Ibanez,  87 

Identification,  142,  143,  169,  223, 
^yj,  298,  322,  323 
with  animals,  167,  232-240,  243 
Illusion,  distinguished  from  hal- 
lucination and  delusion,  39 
Infantile  amnesia,  70,  71 
Insanity, 

as  emotional  outlet,  36,  2>7,  3S 
common    forms    of,    253,    254- 

278 
dementia  prsecox,  2S,  29,   191, 

253-261,  263,  278,  286 
difference    between    functional 
and  organic,  2j 


Insanity  (continued), 
insane     artistic     productions, 

310-312 
manic-depressive    insanity,   28, 

29,  177,  261-263 
simulating  insanity,  36,  37 
paranoia,  264-278 
Insomnia,  causes  of,  105 
Intermediary   sexual  aims,    128 

"Jean  Christophe,"  85 
Johnson,  288 

Karpas,  Doctor,  326 

Kepler,  289 

King  David,  135 

King  Lear,  322 

Kiselak,  first  modern  advertiser, 

288,  289 
Knight,  Richard  Payne,  66 
Korsakoff's  psychosis,  206 
Kraepelin,  3,  4,  27,  28 

Lang,  305 

Lapses, 
in  reading,  97 
in  talking,  91,  92,  93-95 
in  writing,  88,  89,  95-97 

Last  child,  relation  to  only  child, 
283,  285,  296 

Latency  period,  place  in  child's 
development,   189,  190 

Latent  dream,  177,  182,  247,  250, 

335 
Libido,  194  293,  322 
fixation  of,  217,  281-284 
for  looking  and  touching,  128, 

323,  325,  326 
Lincoln,  Abraham,  134,  135,  169, 

288 
Life-saver,  as  exhibitionist,  321, 

323 
"Local"  dreams,  231,  232 
Locke's  "tabula  rasa,"  20,  71 
Losing    symbolic  action,  99-101 
"Lothair,"  115 
Louise  Lateau,  case  of,  207 
Love   (see  Sex),  instinct  of,  32, 

188,  223,  264,  281 

Love-life  (see  Sex),  329 

adjustment  in,  30,  272 


INDEX 


34» 


Love-life  (continued), 
as  equivalent  to  sex,  29 
cases    of    disturbances   in,   31, 
33,  34 

Love  object,  enhancement  of,  280 

Luther,  Martin,  289 

Lycanthropia,  239 

Lying,  psychology  of,  200-208 

Madison,  288 
Madonna  cult,  219 
Malingerers,    27,   207 
Mania, 
as  symptom,  2,  3 
doubting,  43 

in    dementia    praecox,    28 
in    manic-depressive    insanity, 
29,  262,  263 
Manic-depressive     insanity,     28, 
29,   177    182,  261-263 
difference     between     dementia 

prascox  and,  263 
in   relation  to  normal  person, 
278 
Manifest  dream,  177,  182,  250 
Marriage,  136,  137,  280 
Masturbation,  255,  256,  270,  273, 

277 
in  relation  to  dementia  praecox, 
255.. 256 
"Masculine  protest,"  235 
Masochism,    partial    component, 

304   316,  317 
Mather,  Cotton,  289 
Maupassant,    153,  326 
Melancholia, 
as  symptom,  2,  3 
in    dementia    praecox,    28 
in    manic-depressive    insanity, 
29,  262 
Mental  diseases,  2-7,  27-29 
distinguished     from     nervous 
diseases,  253 
Methodicalness,    relation    to    de- 
mentia  praecox,  261 
Meyer,  Adolph,  3 
Michelangelo,  19 
Miles,  67 

Missing  train,  dream  of,  229 
Mona  Lisa,  219,  3" 


Morons,  63 

Mother-in-law,   psychology,  282, 

283 
Motion,  elementary  pleasure,  159, 

231 

Napoleon,  169,   170 
Narcistic  love,  189 
Nebuchadnezzar,       identification 

with  animal,  238,  239 
Nero,  294    309 
Nervous  diseases,  2-7 

difference  between  mental  and, 
253 
Neurasthenia,    i,   28 

meaning,  5 

treatment,  5 

cases  of,  6 
Neurosis,  26,  29,  31,  36,  37,  296, 
328,  329,  334 

as  form   of  adjustment,  35-40 

compulsion  neurosis,  43 

distinguished    from    psychosis, 

27..  44 
sex  in,  29 
Neurotics,  25-27,  35,  44,  79,  295 
"Noopsyche,"  relation  to  "thymo- 

psyche,"  178 
Nonsense  wit,  122 

Object  love,  189,  190 

insane      artistic     productions, 
310-312 
CEdipus  dreams,  214-217 
"Q^dipus  Rex,"  214 
Oldest    child,    relation    to    only 

child,  288,  289 
Only  child,  279-295,  296 

aggressive    qualities    of,    288, 

289 
as  leader,  289,  327 
crown  prince,  origin  of   insti- 
tution, 279,  280 
dependent    on    parent's    influ- 
ence, 283 
fixation  on  parent's  image,  281- 

284,  293,   294 
oldest   son,   position    in   home, 
279,  280 


342 


INDEX 


Only  child   (cotutinued), 
present  economic  system  and, 

295 
prophylaxis  and,  294,  295 
relation    to   environment,    279, 

296 
sleeping  with  parents  and,  291 
transference  of,  286-288 
Organic  forgetfulness,  50 
Outdoing  wit,  124,  125 


Pan,  102 

Paradise,  conception  of,  209 
Paranoia,  264-278 
relation    to    "normal"    person, 

278 
Paranoiac,  parts  of  history,  270- 

277 
Pater,  310 
Pearson,  219 
Peary,  149 
Peeper,  128 
Penn,  WiUiam,  289 
Perversion,  meaning,  128 
Pestalozzi,  289 
Pets,   as   emotional   outlet,   239, 

240 
Phallic  symbols,  66 
Phillips,  Wendell,  132,   133 
Pinel,  Philippe,  2 
Playing  with  dolls,  influence  of, 

292 
Pleasure  principle,  159,  314 
Poet,  relation  to  liar,  207 
"Poison  needle"  case,  192,  193 
Poriomania,  54 
Prepubescent  age,  106,  189,  190, 

281 
Prescott,  207 

Productions,  artistic,  308,  312 
Projection,  45 
"Prophetic"  dreams,  significance, 

143,  144,  227-229 
Prophylaxis, 

only  child  and,  294,  295 
psychoanalysis  and,  21,  46 
Prostitution  complex,  45 
Prostitution  fancies,  194 
"Pseudologia  phantastica,"  205 


Psychoanalysis, 
as  prophylaxis,  21,  46 
differences  between  hypnotism 

and,  18 
limitations  of,  46 
meaning,  i 

relation  to  defective,  19 
similarity  to  sculpture,  18,  19 
Psychology, 
of  actor,  soldier,  life-saver,  etc., 

321-323 
of  changing  names,  86-88 
of  chronic  engagements,  223 
of  collections,  102-110,  336 
of  crown  prince  institution,  279- 

280,288 
of  fear  of  burglars,  loi,  102, 185, 

186 
of  forgetting,  49-59, 68-75 
of  forgetting  names,  76-86 
of  fortune-teller,  298 
of  lapses   in   reading,  writing, 

etc.,  88-97 
of  losing,  99-101 
of  lying,  200-208 
of  marriage  among  bachelors, 

286 
of  mother-in-law,  282, 283 
of  playing  with  dolls,  292 
of  rivalry  between  father  and 

son,  214,  317 
of  smutty  joke,  126-131,  133-136 
of  sneezing,  144 
of  vacations,  328,  329 
of  wit,  1 13-138 
Psychopathological     actions,     1, 

47,  49    51,  335 
Psychopathology     of      everyday 

life,  changing  names,  86-88 
collections,  102-110 
forgetting  names,  76-86 
lapses  in  reading,  writing,  etc., 

88-97 
losing,  99-101 
significance  of,  24,  110-112 
Psychosis,    29,    37-39,    277,    278, 
296,  328,  334 
distinguished     from    neurosis, 

27,  44 
form  of  adjustment,  35-40 


INDEX 


343 


Psychosis  (continued), 
Korsakoff's,  206 
meaning  of,  27,  44,  253 
sex  in,  29,  45 

Puberty,  22,  32,  189- 191,  254,  264 

Purposeful  wit,  125-137 

Putnam,  Doctor,  330 

"Pygmalion,"  293,  294 

Reality,    principle   of,    160,    161, 

2c^,  314 
Representation  through  opposite, 

in  dreams,  125 

in  wit,  123 
Repression,  force  of,  160-163, 186 
Resolution  dream,  228 
Riklin,  298 
Rivalry  between  father  and  son, 

214,  317 
Rolland,  Remain,  85 
Roosevelt,  91,  288 
Rousseau,  290 

Sadism,  partial   component,  304, 

305,  316,  317,  321 
Santo  de  Sanctis,  158 
Saturnalia,  67 

Sears,  Lorenzo,  Doctor,  132 
Selections  of  vocations,  313-333. 

336 
Senile  dementia,  115,  282 
Sense  in  nonsense, 
in  dreams,  125 
in  wit,  123,  124 
Sex,  1 8s 

Ereud's  concept  of,  21-23,  29- 

35,  188 
in  child  and  adult,  35,  106,  188, 

189 
in  dementia  prsecox,  29 
in  normal  person,  30,  191 
in  paranoia,  264 
origin   of  term   "love,"   186 
sex  impulse,  32,  154,  187,  188, 
223 
Sexual  curiosity,  73,  74,  128,  190, 

304,  323  „^      „ 

Sexual   function,   186,   187 
Shakespeare,  311 
Shaw,  Bernard,  168,  293,  294 


Sleeping    with    parents,    among 

children,  291 
Smutty  joke,  psychology  of,  126- 

131,   133-136 
Sneezing,  psychology  of,  144 
Sophocles,  214,  215 
Spiritualism,  psychology  of,  298 
St.  Francis,  289 
St.  Paul,  66,  289 
Stammering,  79-84 
Stimuli,   as   dream  inciters,   140, 

141,   143-146,   155,  249 
Strata  of  dream,  175 
Sublimation,  320-322,  327,  328 

meaning,  314 
Suggestion,  posthypnotic,  16,  17, 

146 
Suicide,  240,  262 
idea   of,   as    emotional   outlet, 
234 
Swett,  Leonard,  134 
Symbols,  59-68,  151-153 
Symbolic     actions.      (See     Psy- 
chopathology     of     everyday 
hfe.) 
Symptom,  147,  179 
analogous  to  dream,  176-183 
as  compromise,  41-43 
as  outlet,  35-40 
latent  content  of,  178 
meaning  of,  9,  12,  25 
relation    to    unconscious    and 

foreconscious,   15,  16 
wish  in,  163,  334 

"Talking  cure,"   8,  9 
Taylor,  288 

Technique  of  wit,  113-125 
Tendencies  of  wit,  125-138 
Thackeray,  98 
Thumb-sucking,  159 
"Thymopsyche,"   178 
Transference,  287 

of  only  child,  286-288 
Troglodytes,  state  of,  266 
Tyler,  288 

Unconscious,  76,  181,  183,  193. 
209,  212,  213,  217,  225,  246, 
334,  335 


344 


INDEX 


Unconscious  (continued), 

language,  20,  66 

meaning,  13,  14,  40 

nature,  15,  16 
Unification  wit,   120    121 

Vacations,    psychology    of,    328, 

329 
Van  Dyke,  1 10 
Van  Buren,  288 
"Verbigerations,"     in     dementia 

prrecox,  256 
Virchow,    3,    207 
Vocations,     selections    of,    313- 

333,   336 
Voyeur,  128,  323 

Wallace,  Doctor,  144 
Wanke,  307 
.Washington,  288 
Weber-Fechner  law,  145 
"Werthers   Leiden,"  310,  311 
"White-lie,"  200,   201 
Wish, 
in  artistic  productions,  308-310, 

336 
in  collections,  336 
in  dreams,  147-150.  I53-I5S,  158, 
159,    163-167,    171,    184,    192, 
I93i   199.  2i0,  21  r,  226,  228- 
230,    234,   244-246,    252,   335, 
336 
in  fairy  tales,  296-300,  308,  336 
in  insanity,  37,  38 
in  lying,  200,  207,  208 


Wish  (continued), 
in   psychopathological   actions, 

335 
in  selections  of  vocation,  319, 

324,  336 
m  wit,  335 
Wit, 

animism,  122 

automatism,  119,  120 

condensation,  115-117 

displacement,  117-119 

distortion,  157 

differences  between  dream  an  j 

137,  138 
ellipsis,  122 
harmless,  126,  133 
nonsense,  122 
outdoing,  124,  125 
purposeful,  125-137 
representation    through    oppo- 
site, 123 
resemblance     between    dream 

and,  137 
sense  in  nonsense,  123,  124 
smutty  joke,   126-131,   133-135, 

136 
technique  of,  1 13-125 
tendencies  of,  125-138 
unification,  120,  121 
wish  in,  335 
through  similarity,  125 

"Yoni  lingam,"  66 
Youngest  child,  289 

Zurich  school    13 


AA      000  217  342    5 


